Better than the first chapter

Rating: 7/10 (27 February 2014)

Coming to cinema two months later in Mainland China, the second chapter of THE HOBBIT TRILOGY is poised to prevail the box office in a rather lethargic period after the red-hot Chinese Spring Fe festival.
THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY (2012, 6/10) is a relentless roller-coaster ride with a slew of visual stunts to propel a succinct plot, which doesn't live up to the expectation of THE LORD OF THE RINGS' Middle Earth triumphant standing, also Peter Jackson's innovative shooting technology has received with some resistance and negative feedbacks. The second round, a 3D version is all we have in China, the palette is light-toned, the textual sharpness hasn't been refined from the first one, a tad dim and the same landscape doesn't register the same rapt effect anymore.
Nevertheless, the film is an ameliorated update from AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY, not simply because of Smaug's imposing grandeur and droll garrulousness (voiced by a malignantly intoning Cumberbatch). The plain narration bifurcates from the early start, when Gandalf (McKellen) detaches from the rest of the expedition on a solitary quest, as it often pans out, the journey without the omnipotent grey wizard galvanizes more excitement and comic relief. The action set pieces are imbued with sufficient antics in the barrel cruise, the comeback of Legolas (Bloom) and a freshly coined female elf Tauriel (Lilly) reinforces audience's modern aesthetic as a welcoming love triangle among the two and a handsome (and slightly taller-than-average) dwarf Kili (Turner) is a clever deployment to gratify a touch of romanticism and conforms with the topical love equity enthusiasm. The pulchritude of slaughtering orcs with dexterous archery can never stultify the viewers.
When Bilbo (Freeman) lurches into Smaug's turf to exert his burglar role, it prompts the zenith with the disparate duel between the dwarf pack and the indomitable fire-generator, it is also worth mentioning the dissonant atmosphere between Bilbo and Thorin (Armitage), is the hobbit only an expedient pawn for Thorin's stout-hearted vengeance to reclaim his kingdom, or the boundary of species can be breached through Bilbo's valorous altruism? Let's wait and see what will happen in the final venture.
This time, one might be able to distinguish the 13 dwarfs more easily besides Thorin, Balin (Stott), Kili and Fili (O'Gorman), Freeman is consistently indulged in his invisible vantage with the ring, while McKellen's Gandalf has some perilous path to overcome. The film is properly enlightened by several new characters, apart from Tauriel's apropos feminine touch, Bard (Evans) is the key character introduced here, and for certain his import in the finale is well hinted although we haven't seen too much potential in him yet. And it is always a delight to watch Stephen Fry, sketchily appears as the Master of Laketown, quips with his insidious underling Alfrid (Gage).
As a middle section of a trilogy, this film actually skirts the conundrum of being left in the epic and enmeshed background without a certain closure to end the film itself, it is both satisfied to see to a not out-and-out victory and intrigued to imagine what will happen when the dragon is released to a more spacious scale, all magnetizes its core audience to return for a third time.