More padding than a padded cell full of duvets

Rating: 5/10 (28 December 2013)

This is a very pretty film, and the 3D is pretty good - especially the bees. If you want to spend nearly three hours looking at great scenery and impressively realised sets, not to mention the scariest spiders ever, then this is the film for you. If you like dragons too all the more so.
On the other hand if you are looking for a story then you may be left wanting. Okay it is the middle one of three, but for quite startlingly long periods of the film nothing happens, or if it does happen, happens very slowly. Indeed. Or to put it another way, at one point - after the main characters had arrived in a village - I fell asleep. I woke up 10- 15 mins later and found I had missed (in terms of advancement of plot) absolutely nothing. At all.
Quick summary. Film opens in a pub on the edge of The Shire. We discover one member of Bilbo's merry band has upset lots of people who all want him dead. Galdalf arrives. Threat averted.
Bilbo et al now start treking towards the mountain. Arrive a seriously dodgy wood (Mirkwood, but maybe McGuffin Wood would have been more appropriate). Obviously they have to go through it (one is strongly reminded of that classic book "We're Going on a Bear Hunt"... and then slightly horrified to think what Peter Jackson would come up with if he had the rights to that!). At this moment Gandalf leaves for no terribly good reason other than it needlessly puts the band of travelers in peril.
They enter said wood. This is actually quite a good bit. Admittedly the future (I nearly said "imminent", but that word has no place in a review of Hobbit 2) arrival of the spiders is telegraphed waaaaayyyyy ahead, and you kind of wonder what bunch of thickos would wander into a dark wood full of spider silk (and I mean full) without anyone actually saying "this white stuff... doesn't worry anyone a bit does it?"
Anyway - big scary spiders appear. Mayhem. But no-one dies as a chap from Lord of the Rings shows up (with friend) and spiders leave.
Meanwhile Gandalf has gone off to meet the Seventh Doctor. This is confusing as quite why Doctor Who is in Middle Earth, or where he has put his Tardis, is never explained and - although The Doctor accompanies Gandalf for a period - as soon as it gets remotely interesting Gandalf sends him away. As with much of the film this section is pretty but utterly pointless, plot-wise, but does fill a good 20 minutes or more of screen time. Gandalf now deals with a hornets' nest of nasty creatures by shaking said hornets nest and then bumping off large numbers of them, thus ensuring he is too late to meet up with Bilbo's Band as arranged.
After some fun with Lord of the Rings guy's friends (who have taken against them) said Band have arrived in a town where Stephen Fry is king. As usual, Stephen Fry plays the part of Stephen Fry flawlessly. Nothing of any real significance happens for a long time.
They arrive at the mountain, and Bilbo is sent off to find a stone alone by his brave band. Finds the stone, plus a Smaug the Dragon, who has clearly been watching Goldfinger as - in a homage to every Bond villain throughout time - his proceeds to talk A LOT to Bilbo about... almost anything... thus allowing Bilbo to escape, rather than simply killing him immediately. Unless his first aim really was to talk Bilbo to death - because he does come pretty close. Again you wonder about how stupid a character can be as Bilbo's target is a stone shining out like a searchlight - but Smaug never seems to cotton on to this.
After that... long, long battle between Smaug and Bilbo's band during which... no-one dies, not least because whenever anyone is at the Smaug's mercy he decides to talk to them instead of doing the proper dragonly thing.
Eventually everyone gets bored (or something) and Dragon flies off to attack Stephen Fry's village. Roll credits.
Summary - a 160 minute film whose story could have been told in 60 minutes. Or less.