Two days ago James and I went to the cinema to watch 'The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug', and going into it I had mixed feelings about the first Hobbit film, thinking there was some good moments, but at the same time I didn't feel it was a great film, so to say the least I was barely anticipating this film, from parts of trailer footage I saw it looked improved from the first, but yeah, still wasn't fully sold.

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So what did I think of the film itself? Well, during the film I was impressed how a simple change from 48fps to 24fps could make the visual effects seem a lot better and more believable, the character of Bilbo was way more developed and Thorin was much more fleshed out and at some points felt as if HE was the main character of the film, however I also felt the film dragged at parts and I felt like I was nodding off through some moments of the film, I'm not sure if that was because I had a busy day, but still, a film should really keep my attention, also the romance between Kili and Tauriel felt shoe horned in, and fans of the book cannot say "but it was in the book" because I did my research and the character of Tauriel was added into the movie. But there were some great moments in the film, Bilbo stabbing the spiders for the ring, that really showed how he is turning into a completely different type of person (or Hobbit, if you want to be specific), the barrel action scene, that was actually thrilling, especially when the music stopped and just let the action keep going, that was great, Luke Evans' character was a pleasant surprise, I didn't think he was going to be great, but he actually was a pretty valuable asset to the story, however, the best part of the entire film was Benedict Cumberbach as Smaug, I may be a little bias by saying this (as I am a huge Cumberbach fan) but he killed it as Smaug, I thought I was going to find the character a little bit silly, but I actually found him quite threatening, and the dialogue between him and Bilbo (insert Sherlock/Watson reference here) had my eyes glued to the screen. Finally the ending, no spoilers, but that was defiantly the perfect way to end a second film in a trilogy. Overall when I left the cinema, I still felt the after effects of the lesser interesting scenes and thought the film was good, better then I thought, but still not as great as I thought it should have been.

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After thinking about it for a few days now, I have grown to like the film a lot more, and feel like I want to watch it again, which is a feeling I did not have after watching An Unexpected Journey, or even Fellowship of the Ring, so yeah, my opinion has changed of the film, but I still don't think it was by any means a perfect film, however I am looking forward the 'There and Back Again'.