The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

For the director it has been surely hard to stay on track and reach the same high level after the glorious "Lord of the Rings" movies. It’s hard to fight the feeling that The Hobbit simply isn’t an epic story, and the efforts to expand it into four long movies feels like an anvil crammed into a sock: The sock is taking on some weird shapes, and it’s being stretched awfully thin. The film wasn't griopping and after one hour I got really tired. I couldn't take the dragon really seriously. Especially its voice. It made him seem rediculous and not dangerous at all. Especially when the dragon tried to be a philosopher and had the long conversation with the hobbit although he couldn't even see him.

After sitting through the first film and at times finding myself slightly bored (lovely to watch just a bit long) I was a little apprehensive about the second Hobbit film.

Again I watched in 2D as the 3D glasses would be itching to be thrown from my face after 4 hours. I don't feel that I really missed anything from not seeing it in 3D.

The Desolation of Smaug is much better than the first film. The action continues and a sense of urgency is sustained throughout. The introduction of of more characters (other than dwarves) was welcome although Legolas looks a bit odd now that Orlando Bloom is older (something about the contact lenses as well...).

Kate from Lost appears and failed to annoy me which was great as I really wanted her to be miserable on Lost.

There is also some eye candy on display which is an added bonus.

Back to the film itself. The story is good, the action is good, the dragon is good and I honestly did not feel like I had been sat for hours in a cinema. I probably enjoyed this film more than the last two Lord of the Rings films. Everyone in the film is a little darker and on edge which makes it feel much more real.

See it in the cinema if you can spare half a day.