Worse Than the First

Rating: 3/10 (12 December 2013)

I went into The Desolation of Smaug with low expectations and managed to be disappointed. Like many, I love The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, but the prequel trilogy has yet to impress.
That's not entirely true. Peter Jackson's cameo made me laugh out loud. I also loved the visuals. My only complaint with An Unexpected Journey's visuals was that the orcs looked totally different than they did in the LotR movies. Thankfully, the orcs (with the exception of that pale fellow and his chum) are back to their old menacing look and feel.
But TDoS does not impress in writing, acting, music, action sequences, or anything else.
Writing: If I had taken a drink every time there was a dramatic pause followed by some God-awful, stupid line, I might have given this review a higher score on account of being too inebriated to catch all the awful writing and nonsensical plot filler that littered the last half of the movie.
Acting: With how long this movie is, and with how much filler they squeezed in, it's amazing to me that it never seemed like anyone had time to properly deliver a line of dialogue. Everything felt rushed. Questions bled into answers as if the characters knew what would be said before it was said. The emotions of the characters seemed either non- existent or so over the top that the viewer could not possibly relate.
Music: I didn't notice it until the very end when I thought, "There's music playing, isn't there?" Any LotR fan knows this is a bad thing.
Action Sequences: These were my least favorite parts of the movie, and they took up about half of the time. I love a good action sequence when it's done right. However, these are not. Half of the action was silly and cheesy, and the other half was boring (not quite half, actually, because I properly liked one bit of action: when that dwarf did a barrel roll, if you know what I mean). It was always predictable. "Predictable? That's the nature of a prequel!" I hear you scream. Well then tell the writers to get the action over with fast so we can focus on, say, caring about the characters.
Anything Else: Smaug was stupid; he looked cliché-dragon, sounded cliché-deep-voice, and acted like an enemy in a bad action movie (coincidence???). The movie strayed far from the book. I mean, I'm not the sort to bad-mouth a movie because it's different from the book, but I am one to bad-mouth a movie that ruins everything it touches in the book. Which in this case is everything.