More of the same and Smaug is not worth the wait

Rating: 6/10 (24 May 2016)

I didn't see this in cinemas. I was so disappointed in the overlong nonsense of An Unexpected Journey, I refused to watch the second and third movies. Reluctantly I eventually watched Desolation of Smaug on DVD, and well, I don't know. It's technically better than the first film, but still has all the same flaws; the unnecessary characters, the bloated length, the side quests that go nowhere and the jarring tonal shifts.
Things start off promisingly enough, but soon devolve into an awkward mix of slapstick and pratfalls. And it seems that all the FX work on Smaug consumed the production, and the rest of the CGI was rushed in a week. I hate that Azog is a CGI character, he has no depth whatsoever. And the barrel ride with the dwarfs has some of the worst blue screen work I've seen in recent years.
Once the film gets to lake Town, I gave up, the film just stops dead in it's tracks. The pointless politics, the endless discussions, and the ridiculous master of the town. I love Stephen Fry, the man is a genius. But from his first scene, I couldn't stop giggling. He's less Master of Lake Town and more Monty Python.
After an eternity of needless exposition and characters that go nowhere, our forgettable (Thorin and Balin excluded) dwarfs finally encounter the title character. Just like the riddles in the dark scene with Bilbo and Gollum in the first film, Smaug is worth the wait. He's everything I wanted and more. It's just unfortunate that Jackson just can't figure out what the tone of the film is. The scene with the dwarfs fighting Smaug goes on way too long, shifting from genuinely exciting to comical, to ridiculous (And back again).
So do I recommend it? Not really, if you're a Tolkein purist, you'll probably hate it (I am one of them), if you're a casual film fan, you'll be bored by the excessive running time and bloated second act. And if you're a kid who read the book and you want to see a film version, the film is too violent and intense. For a film based on a children's book, it's all over the place. Rent the DVD, chapter skip to where you first see Smaug, then watch it to the end. Everything else is rubbish.