Could have been so much better

Rating: 4/10 (7 June 2014)

The first film; well I quite liked it as it captured the feel and themes of the book really well, albeit so drawn out you would think that the series would go for 5 films.
Now, the second in the series. Things change a lot and the pace hits absolute top gear, flying from one encounter to the next.
Overall the film did not work for me. I know some will lap up the action, but it is unnecessarily drawn out, action scenes are even added where there should not be and did not happen in the book; but all this comes at the expense of the character development and building of the grandeur, length and epicness of the adventure. With three films to work with, there is an opportunity to spend some time doing this, however, with the distracting side plots and drawn out action scenes, there is no time.
What made the LOTR series great was the ability to capture the themes and story of the books. For the hobbit, I'm starting to feel its not the hobbit any more, just a movie with characters of the same name.
Fight scene with smaug at the end never happened in the book and ended up just stupid. Rivers of gold and a liquified gold titan whipped up in a few minutes....really?