"No matter what may come, stay on the path."

Rating: 9/10 (29 November 2014)

"The Lord of silver fountains, King of carven stone, the King beneath the mountain, shall come into his own".
With those words of Durin's prophecy, the rag-tag bunch of dwarfs led by Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitage) continue their journey through the elf-land of Mirkwood, the village of Lake Town and on to Ereborn, home of Smaug the Dragon, guardian of dwarf treasure of legend. I have to wonder what Tolkien might have thought about his characters and locations put to the big screen to earn him a new generation of fans and followers of the Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.
To be sure, there's some poetic license taken with this installment of the original Hobbit story, so if you're a Tolkien purist the movie will probably give you fits. Personally, it's been a considerably long time since I've read the books and my memory is hazy on specific points. However I find that overall, the films provide a rich tapestry of characters and geography set in a fictional universe that's the rival of any work in literature or entertainment.