Entertaining but just not a great addition to the Middle Earth universe

Rating: 7/10 (10 January 2014)

"The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug" feels all too familiar, because it is. Peter Jackson pretty much uses up all his tropes to breathe life into this unnecessary middle part of the trilogy based on a story that's been stretched too thin already.
The story picks up where the first Hobbit film left off, but it is a much darker film. Even the sprightly Bilbo Baggins has a certain nastiness to him, add to that the Necromancer, Mirkwood, and a new Orc Chieftain you have a grim tale to tell, but that's where Peter Jackson's latest effort comes up short. There is no tale to tell and the film, in a self-parodying fashion ends up being a walkathon.
New characters like Evangeline Lily's Tauriel are nice additions, but it all feels like filler especially when Jackson strays from source material with clichéd dialogue, contrived romances and predictable action sequences. Speaking of which, the stakes were never lower for our traveling company. There is no orc nor Morgul blade that the dwarfs and the surprisingly efficient Bilbo cannot overcome and if you rolled your eyes at the Goblin cave sequence in the first film, be prepared for more of the same in this one.
Unsurprisingly, the production quality is top-notch and so is the music. The dragon - Smaug is very well crafted and voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch. The film, while long at over 160 mins involving mainly walking around, never feels boring. It just isn't a great addition to the Middle Earth universe and feels like a filler. But it does succeed in building up anticipation for the grand finale. 6.5/10