Lived up to expectations

Rating: 10/10 (15 December 2013)

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug was a movie i had been waiting to see since i left the theater after seeing the first one. i really liked the first one, it did not let me down like it did to some people so i had some pretty high expectations fore this one. This movie however did not fall short to the first movie and was actually quite a lot better than the first one. This movie like i said before did stray quite a lot away from the books but in my opinion that was not a bad thing, Peter Jackson did an amazing job at making this film both watchable for die hard fans of the Lord Of the Rings series and the casual fans who have only watched the movies, and he did have a few Easter eggs in there who in my opinion were funny and very funny but they were not needed. One of them is just the presence of Legolas in the movie, it made sense to me that is was in the movie but the created a hole story line for him and Tauriel and thereby leaving 4 Dwarfs in Laketown which was my main problem with the story, this extra story line that they put in with them and the love interest between Fili and Tauriel and the fact that Fili was almost killed with the Morgul arrow was not at all necessary and it was in my eyes just an excuse to have Legolas in the movie a bit more. But now to other things, Smaug, Smaug was AMAZING, that is all i have to say about him, there was nothing that they could have done better with him, both the CGI and the frightening voice of Benedict Cumberbatch, it all mixed in one amazing character and it was better than i could ever imagine. Now to the ending, The ending in my eyes was great, it was a total cliffhanger and it left you wanting more and in tears that you had to wait an entire year to see what how it ends. The part where the Dwarfs tried to kill Smaug with the melted gold was for me a good climax of the film and a really good setup for the beginning of the third one. The song "I See Fire" by Ed Sheeran did actually work quite well i did calm me down after the crazy cliffhanger that the movie ended on.
The acting in the movie similar to like the first one did not disappoint at all everyone was just perfectly cast and everyone did an amazing job. Some characters were a surprise to see performed so good(Like Stephen Fry as the Laketown master) and some were not so surprising(Like Ian McKellen as Gandalf.
Overall i thought the movie was fantastic and it was worth waiting in line for 5 hours and lives up to expectations.