Marval Movie

DRAGON! There's a Dragon in this movie! YES!

The second part of a trilogy begins and its time for the make or break point in this movie franchise.

The movie hits the ground running, with our characters, Bilbo and company literally running. The lonely mountain is getting closer but there are still many struggles in their way of getting there.

Unlike the first movie, this movie has a lot less of the childish slapstick and more grounded mature action scenes. I did feel however that some of the gore went a little too far and they did make the action uneven. But it was still more even than in the first movie.

In the last movie I complained that it was such a boys movie and there wasnt really anything for a girl. Well in this movie its been rectified with the adding of Tauriel. She is an Elf warrior played by Evangeline Lilly and she is a total bad-ass. Shes strong, but also has a sensitive side, she uses her head but also follows her heart and she can shoot a bow and wield a sword with the best of them. She has already earned a spot as one of my favorite female characters.

Speaking of Elves Legolas makes his return in this movie as well. Again played by Orlando Bloom and if you liked him in the original Lord Of The Rings movies then good for you he's back, plain and simple. In fact I think over the years Bloom has gotten even better as an actor.

I felt the last movie was a real tease with the Dragon, but here its all been worth the wait. Smaug here is easily one of the best movie Dragons ever (then again I haven't though about who the other great Dragon's are) he's huge, he's well designed and very threatening. Benedict Cumberbatch plays him and he relished playing this larger than life creature, his voice just meshes perfectly with his scale and ego. I felt cheated out of a Dragon last year but now I get one and it is glorious!

Something else that's been put into the movie is that, in the book, Gandalf has to part ways from the main story quite often, so here we get to see what he was up to. We get to see his encounter with the Necromancer (also played by Cumberbatch) a mysterious force that is personified by a living entity of darkness and a voice.

I saw this movie in regular 2D and in traditional twenty five frames a second. I've learned my lesson from last year. The movie looks fine and is a two-hundred-million dollar movie that looks like a two-hundred-million dollar movie. Don't waste your time with the 3D and higher frame rate, the regular way is just fine.

This movie is better than the first but still there are some uneven moments and  because they have to stretch one book into three movies it is obvious that they have to extend their source material a little too thin and even add moments that don't really go down well. But some of my problems that I had in the last movie was fixed here and maybe by then end of this trilogy we'll have the whole work better that the sum of its parts.

Plus the moments with the Dragon are really awesome!

Rating: 3 stars out of 4