A year has passed since the first Hobbit movie so it was time for Peter Jackson and company to bring us back to Middle Earth in The Desolation of Smaug.

With almost everyone in New Zealand on the crew, Peter Jackson has again crafted another gorgeous movie. A real treat to look at in nearly every sumptuous frame, Desolation brings us back to the world where Hobbits, Elves, Dwarves, Orcs and a whole ecosystem of fantasy creatures live and breath. It’s another convincing visual achievement (stunning set design, costumes, make up and CG work), but as a story I couldn’t shake the feeling of apathy. It’s a big poke at Lord of the Rings to simply say that you spend 9 hours watching people walking to a mountain. Obviously there’s a lot more to it than that, but the feeling of just meandering around is hard to ignore.

Sitting in the theatre I kept trying to figure out what I was feeling as it was an odd mixture of boredom and excitement. I really enjoyed seeing the movie, but not actually watchingit. Events are just sort of strung along, dragging you with it. Characters come and go seemingly because the wind started blowing in a different direction. Gandolf is at one point in lock step with the Dwarves and Bilbo to get to Erebor to take back the Dwarven kingdom and then he suddenly says he has to leave them. “Stay on this path through the forest or your dead, I’m off to go talk to a dirty wizard about something I just thought of. I’ll catch up with you. Maybe.” This kind of weird separation happens a lot so whenever they cut to a character who was off doing his own thing, I kept thinking of the 60’s Batman logo spinning into frame with an announcer yelling “Meanwhile!”.

While this journey has action scenes throughout (the river sequence is fantastic) it did little to keep me from being blasé about everyone. You already know who makes it out of this story so it feels like it doesn’t matter if some creature is swinging a pointy object at them.

I find the whole idea of extending The Hobbit into a trilogy to be a mistake. Every book adaptation cleaves the narrative to make a tight movie and PJ puts this book in the rack to stretch it out to get another 2 1/2 hours that isn’t actually there? The character Tauriel was made for the movie, so everything she does wouldn’t be missed. It’s all padding. I’m saying that about a character I actually liked too! But that’s only because she’s played by Evangeline Lilly, who I have a goofy crush on so my opinion on her roles are completely biased (I’m the same way about her in Lost. People hated her character after awhile, but I never minded about whatever nonsense they had her do). The love triangle they made for her story arc was just weird and annoying in the end. For example, the Elves capture the Dwarves, lock them up and Tauriel strikes up a conversation with one of them. The two bond a little bit and she later says to another elf that she thinks he’s pretty cool and the elf responds, “Yeah? He’s still ugly! Elves rule!” What? He’s literally a shorter version of you! You are all humanoid beings that basically only have different expected life spans. Apparently everyone on Middle Earth is a champion level hater. It’s a really weird thing that stuck out to me, but I had to think about something while this flick oozed to its slam cut to black and credit roll.

This might be a good example of just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you should. That said, I do want to see the third movie to see the conclusion, but I’m in no hurry to see Desolation again any time soon.