careful driving today…there’s a good chance of smaaauuug
Let’s face it, this entire movie series was just leading up to the scene in this movie towards the end where Bilbo meets Smaug and all hell breaks loose. And hey, that scene delivers. It’s intense and fun, but it results in a bit of a let down when the movie ends shortly after it. After a lot of padding and unnecessarily drawn out scenes, we get to the good stuff and then the movie is over!
In some ways I don’t mind Jackson fleshing out this story and adding a little more depth, but at times in this one (more so than in the first film) I found myself getting a little frustrated with some scenes that just went on too long or didn’t seem to belong. I could feel it being pushed out to 3 movies.
That being said, it’s still a pretty fun ride. I saw it in 3D IMAX and that was a bit much. I need to see it again in 2D just to catch a few moments in the action scenes that I missed the first time around.
One last complaint to voice – I wish they had added a couple more dwarves. Why? So that Smaug would have had something to munch on. There’s no real sense of danger in the action sequences because you know none of these characters are going to be killed off. The journey would seem much more perilous if occasionally a dwarf or two were lost. Just sayin’…
7.8/10
