The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

The wonderful thing about trilogy's is their formula. First act introduces the main characters and the premise of the story, in the case of The Hobbit: Bilbo, Thorin Oakenshield and his band of Dwarves of Erebor.  Some in the company are old enough to have actually lived there, others descendants.  The second act puts the heroes in the worst possible position ever where they can't possibly win. Enter the dragon, Smaug!

Tolkien traditionalists may take umbrage with certain parts of this second installment as parts of the story were created for the screen that never existed in the book.  The same was said about the first film, such as Azog the Defiler and his dark desire to ruin the line of Thror one by one. 

In The Desolation of Smaug, the Elves play a much bigger role than in that part of the book and Orlando Bloom reprises his role from The Lord of the Rings trilogy plus the added bonus of Evangeline Lilly as Thauriel, captain of the guard for the Wood Elves and the love of Legolas. Though it must be an unrequited love as Legolas is high-born and Thauriel is a commoner.

The additions, including a strange lovestory aspect that seems almost forced despite the natural formation director Peter Jackson tries to create, are not all bad.  Where I run into issues is how they add people and scenes and then, even in a one-book-trilogy manage to butcher the great scene with the spiders of Mirkwood by shortening it inexplicably is genuinely annoying.

An addition that I did specifically enjoy was the story of Gandalf.  In the book he leaves the company as they are entering Mirkwood and then his story is never told.  In the movie we discover how he encounters the great Evil to the North and how it plays into the return of Sauron.  

The film flowed beautifully and was visually stunning. Rarely does a movie of such length not feel like a movie of such length. Here the rich story, engaging characters and various storylines keep the viewer on the edge the entire time.