A satisfying improvement over An Unexpected Journey

Rating: 9/10 (15 December 2013)

It has never been easy as a middle film of the trilogy, but Peter Jackson has successfully proved himself once again to start and end it at a right scene. While the song "I See Fire" seems a bit awful to attach immediately after the last scene and the lost of emotional feel from An Unexpected Journey, the great cinematography, set up and setting of barrel wine scenes, lake town, searching of Sauron and Erebor, enhancing humors, straightforward storyline, tensed middle earth action, great and terrifying Smaug as well as cast's performance have overall made the sequel an improvement over the predecessor, and to make audiences craving for the final chapter desperately.