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Message: <blockquote data-quote="horacethegrey" data-source="post: 6233114" data-attributes="member: 40123">Well... Might as well chime in as to my thoughts to this film. This was a HUGE improvement over An Unexpected Journey. Much faster paced and definitely less boring bits that made the first film a bit of a slog to watch. WARNING!!! SOME SPOILERS AHEADFirst the PROS. Smaug was magnificent! I daresay that is the most fantastical dragon to ever appear on a movie screen. Jackson, Del Toro and the Weta team really outdid themselves in bringing him to life. And great kudos to Benedict Cumberbatch in voicing this creature with a dark and sinister edge, as befits most people's classical image of a dragon. Another plus is the subplot regarding Gandalf's visit to Dol Goldur. The highlight being his encounter with Sauron. Such an incredible sequence watching two old powers of Arda duking it out. In the first film I criticized the inclusion of supplemental materials that didn't appear in the book, but here it's used well and really adds to the film. The Mirkwood sequence also has to be mentioned. What a wonderfully surreal and creepy scene with some genuinely frightening moments. Like the Spiders. And it even sneaks in a reference to the Ring's sneaking corruption on Bilbo. "Mine!" <img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devil.png"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":devil:" title="Devil    :devil:" data-shortname=":devil:" />But the Mirkwood sequence leads to one of my few CONS with the film. Namely the jerkass Elves who live there. Man, the elves of Lothlorien are saints compared to these a**holes. I get that Tolkien wrote them that way in the book, but here their jerkish nature seems to be taken to eleven. Thranduil is a dick, as is his son the returning fan fave Legolas. It's kind of a shock to seem him so openly dislike the dwarven race, so his friendship with Gimli later on shows just far he came. Suprisingly, Evangeline Lily as Tauriel was pretty good, her gentle nature and common sense provided a relief from all the elvish dickery going around. Not really sure about her ship tease with Kili though, but hey, elf and dwarf romance is something I don't mind. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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