This reviewer did not find that quality in "An Unexpected Journey", the first installment of Peter Jackson's gigantic trilogy based on Tolkien's slim one-volume classic "The Hobbit," but it is there in spades in part two, "The Desolation of Smaug." This middle chapter is about a half-hour too long, and the final third splits the story up into three pieces, weakening the narrative thrust that had been building, but no matter: By the time we get to Bilbo Baggins' confrontation with the dragon Smaug (voiced with delicious sneering evil by Benedict Cumberbatch), the real work has been done. Tolkien's parenthetical "when achieved" is the kicker of that statement, the acknowledgement of how difficult and rare successful fantasy really is. "Fantasy (in this sense) is, I think, not a lower but a higher form of Art, indeed the most nearly pure form, and so (when achieved) the most potent." - J.R.R.
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