Long and lacking proper characterization but great scenes and action

Rating: 8/10 (26 December 2013)

First let me wish you all merry Christmas and happy holidays from us at Fantasy World Writer.
Now onto our review of Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug.
First as you probably know this is the 2nd of three Hobbit movies by Peter Jackson. The third movie comes out soon which is an important fact that I will bring up again at the end of this review. Stop reading here if you don't want to know what happens in the movie.
Like most if not all Tolkien books the storyline revolves around a journey and the movie is worth seeing just for the fantastic scenery and special effects. The main characters travel through normal woods, open plains, dark and twisted woods, wood elves kingdom, Rocky Mountain terrain, a town surrounded by water, and a huge underground dwarf kingdom. There is plenty to see and re watch visually and right now I am thinking this would be a great movie to view in my man cave.
I also very much enjoyed seeing Legolis engage in his own special version of pin the arrow into the orc. That elf is one bad dude and his moves would put a martial artist or superhero to shame. Taurial is also just about as fun to watch as she tends to be more up close and person in combat.
What I didn't like about the movie and others in the theater seemed to agree is that the movie ended without a real ending. Yes, Smaug, the dragon awakes, runs amock, breaths fire at Bilbo and the dwarfs but at the end he flies away to attack the town. You have to wait until the next movie to see what happens to Smaug and the town.
I also warn you to eat before going to the movie because at 161 minutes I feel the movie ran too long for my liking.
Overall I would rate Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug a solid B or 8.0 for it's great visuals and entertaining combat but downgrade it for its lack of character development, no real ending, and inability to keep my from looking at my watch several times due to its length and slowly moving storyline. A good movie and worth watching as a fantasy fan but not fantastic.
Living in a fantasy world,
Citizenone,