As Usual, A fantastic addition to middle earth!

Rating: 9/10 (17 December 2013)

The early parts of the film stutter and you wonder how far the involvement of Mirkwood and the elves will go, upon escape there is a slowness to the adventure of the dwarfs but an insight to gandalfs 'dissappearance' and his side quest, ultimately the film brings you to follow numerous paths much like the LOTR where eventually you come to follow Thorin, bilbo, the lake town lot, gandalf and even the two elves. Each individual quest is infatuating and we become concerned for lake town, for legolas, for gandalf and for the company of dwarfs. Smaug by the way is brilliant, much has been said about the idea of a talking dragon, especially since the comparison to the LOTR where no creatures spoke, apart from the human like, his character gives a real menacing personality to what is a seemingly unbeatable foe. The villains are truly great altogether Smaug, the necromancer, bolg and azog all create an essence of darkness and inevitable defeat for the good people of middle earth. I found the ending frustrating as I could not stand to wait another year to see the next installment, however is have to say it was one hell of a second film. I'd say 9.2 myself but il have to round down