Entertaining if nothing else

Rating: 7/10 (15 January 2014)

The Desolation of Smaug is a little less boring than the previous instalment, but it's really no better in terms of craft and narrative. Therere is one inspired action sequence in which the dwarfs and Bilbo escape from the elves in barrels. This sequence recalls Jackson's King Kong set pieces where he just builds ideas on top of ideas into an extended adventure. And that's it. Then it's all back to normal.
Whilst the Lord of the Rings were Oscar-winning technical marvels, the biggest issue I have with this and Journey is that the story is so mundane that we're left looking for a visual "wow" factor, and it's not there. The barrel sequence was so clever, I didn't care how the effects looked. The generic archery and dragon hunting wasn't creatively captivating, and it certainly wasn't visually so.
Overall it's entertaining and it's quite obvious the source material is so short that the crew had no choice but to embellish on the story. And add plenty of visual effects as filler to prolong this story across three films.
If you're seek an absolutely 100% accurate book to film translation you will be unhappy. But if you want to be entertained and can overlook this you'll have a nice time