A HUGE Lord of The Rings fan here! and I have mixed feelings about this movie just like the previous The Hobbit movie.
Let's start with the positive points:
The Acting, it's fantastic and Martin Freeman once again kills it as Bilbo and he is just so fun to watch on the screen and everyone else is great. Gandalf is a huge badass (no surprise there,, this is the same old guy that stood up to the Balrog and said You Shall Not Pass).
The Dragon is awesome and Benedict Cumberpatch is awesome, his voice is amazing and Benedict and Martin together in any scene will make me happy ! The dragon looks majestic and everything worked with that dragon.. honestly it made the movie 10x times better.
The music is great (it's Howard Shore). Some of the action sequences are amazing (the mirkwood spiders, the Barrel scene)
Also the subplot with Gandalf and the Necromancer is actually interesting.
(Lee Pace as Elvenking just decapitating that Orc was so beautiful I can't describe it!)
Then for the negatives:
it's too LONG! and this is not just me saying, anyone who saw this movie says this, it is very long and thus so many and I mean SO MANY useless fillers are thrown in there that just decreases the quality of the movie, they do so much harm!
That Romance is stupid and should NOT have been there, I would have liked it a bit if it was with Legolas and added a bit to his character but nope that Elf is just in love with that dwarf..
The Lake Town people and that useless hate for Bard is incredibely useless.
The dwarves trying to kill a FIRE BREATHING dragon by molten gold is stupid.
Too much CGI and Green screen, as I rewatched this movie I realized that the CGI in the Lord of The Rings was better than this and that was 13 years before this movie, I don't like CGI Azog or Bolg or just CGI orc in general.
Azog is still a subplot that I didn't like.
So these are just the Important stuff that I had to say!
(and Legolas seems to defy Physics.. doesn't matter he's cool LOL)

I'm finding that I'm actually enjoying "The Hobbit" series more than I did the original "Lord of the Rings" trilogy. I think I can attribute that to the casting of Martin Freeman as "Bilbo". He is a much more enjoyable character than Frodo and Elijah Wood's portrayal of him. Sure,the two have different personalities and one is much more influenced by the Ring than the other, but I'm finding Freeman's Bilbo to be endlessly entertaining. Not to mention how wonderful Ian McKellen remains as Gandalf.

I do prefer Gimli and Aragorn from the "Rings" trilogy to the Dwarves of the "Hobbit", but the adventure to reclaim the Dwarve kingdom of Erebor is less dark than the quest to destroy the Ring in the previous series.

Now, I can't leave out the best thing about "The Desolation of Smaug". Yes, I'm taking about Evangeline Lilly as Tauriel. Wait...no I'm kidding. Don't get me wrong. It is great to see her getting a regular gig again after "Lost". No, the real star of the show is the amazing Smaug the Dragon. I was just in awe of how great Smaug looked. It was practically giant monster porn for me and if you've ever read any of my other comments on movies, you know I love me some monsters, kaiju, whatever you want to call them. The dragon in "Dragonslayer" was great and so were the beasts in "Reign of Fire", but none of them compare with Smaug. And then to top it off, they cover him in gold. It was just plain awesome.

There is much more CGI in these "Hobbit" films than there were in the "Rings" trilogy but that's just a sign of the times. The CGI in this film is distracting at times, but not as distracting as a movie rooted in gritty realism like "Non-Stop" and it's faked jetliner. I'm actually kind of fond of the CGI used in "The Hobbit" series because it's giving us some amazing monsters. The giant spiders, the "man-bear", the Orcs, Smaug...there's a lot for a monster-loving moviegoer to enjoy.

There were some great action scenes including a raging river chase with Dwarves in barrels and naturally, the battle with Smaug. A few scenes dragged on a bit and I was bothered by some lesser quality CGI-generated Elves. I'm also becoming more and more annoyed by absolutely zero Dwarves getting killed or even injured during all of these battles. It's almost to the point where the suspense is non-existent. Oh sure, there are thrilling sequences, but it seems none of the good guys are ever truly in danger. It's sort of like watching Superman. You know no harm can really come to him.

Regardless, "The Desolation of Smaug" exceeded my expectations and contrary to what I had anticipated, I am looking forward to seeing "The Battle of the Five Armies" as soon as I can.

Still very good, but I found 'The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug' to be a step below the preceding 2012 release.

The conclusion is what affects it the most, in my opinion. It isn't anything bad, but it goes on for too long - yet the ending itself comes out of nowhere a little. It's iffily crafted, with the entertainment value not enough to cover it up. Again, nothing anywhere near terrible... just not as great as I wanted/expected.

I also kinda wanted more scenes with Martin Freeman (Bilbo) across the midway point. I like the focus on Richard Armitage (Thorin) & Co. but I felt there needed to be more with the lead - and with Ian McKellen (Gandalf), for that matter.

I've led with my negatives first, but I have many positives too. I enjoyed the scenes in Esgaroth with Luke Evans (Bard), all of the stuff there looks awesome. The character of Tauriel, played by Evangeline Lilly, is cool. Orlando Bloom (Legolas) remains fun to watch. Everything else, including the score, is very nicely done - as anticipated.

Love the end credits song ("I See Fire") by Ed Sheeran, by the way. Not quite as grand and great as "May It Be" from LOTR, but it's pretty close!

I'm happy to be back in this world, but _Empire_ this ain't.

_Final rating:★★★ - I liked it. Would personally recommend you give it a go._

I'm afraid I still really struggled with the lightweight casting here, but once I'd convinced myself to get over that, I found this to be a far more characterful and entertaining adventure. With the dragon "Smaug" now safely in possession of the gold, it falls to "Thorin" (Richard Armitage) and his band of dwarves to make their way - via the misty mountains and the realm of the elves - to the human settlement of "Laketown" where the nimble-fingered "Bilbo" (Martin Freeman) must find and use a secret way into the lair so he can try to repossess the "Arkenstone". Meantime, the mischievous "Gandalf" (Sir Ian McKellen) is off having escapades of his own in the South? Will they rendezvous in time to thwart the increasingly narked fire-breather. What is clear here is that some of the philosophising from the book is very much on the back burner. This is an out-and-out action movie with loads of combat scenes, some very clever visual effects that almost rendered me a bit sea-sick at times - all built around a solid story of companionship and determination. Characters are playing to their strengths and weaknesses; relationships are being forged and challenged; courage is being found - and lost and it's all enjoyable and engaging to watch on the big screen. Maybe I could have been doing without the romantic interludes (yuk!) but for the most part this is a great looking and visionary interpretation that just happens to have a cast that really should have been so much better. A good, not a great, watch that tees us up nicely for the finale.