The Hobbit–The Desolation of Smaug

I don’t recall posting any movie reviews here on the blog before but there’s a first time for everything.

When it first came out that The Hobbit was being filmed it was supposed to be two movies, which made sense. "There" and "Back Again," ya know. When I heard it was a trilogy I questioned it.

For example, The Hobbit - An Unexpected Journey had way too much padding that didn’t add anything to the story, IMHO.

I saw The Desolation of Smaug yesterday. IMO it's much better than the first movie, even though there is a lot of stuff in it that was not in the book.

Beorn was really well done, IMO. Smaug was fantastic. The CGI is excellent and Benedict Cumberbatch did an wondeful job of vocalizing him.

I've read The Hobbit and The LOTR 4 or 5 times. I was pleased with how faithful the LOTR movies were to the books. For The Hobbit I'm looking at them as movies inspired by the book and just enjoying them. It's not like Jackson went all Paul Verhoeven on them, the way the latter did to Starship Troopers.

I’d say that if you like fantasy movies or Tolkein in particular, go see TH-DOS. Just keep in mind that it’s not a faithful interpretation of the book.