The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (Peter Jackson, 2013)

The second instalment in Peter Jackson's brazen attempt to milk every last drop from the Lord of the Rings bandwagon suffers from the same malaise as The Two Towers; the palette is diminished as the pastoral vibrancy of the Shire has been left far behind and now just battles, hardships and chases involving the laughably indestructible heroes are left to occupy another excessive running time, with so many scenes and characters added as filler to a relatively short book that you begin to doubt the existence of any of them in the source. Of course, Tolkien was quite capable of pages of waffle himself, and in comparison with most fantasy adaptations this is still largely impressive stuff, with some cracking setpieces, the customary stunning scenery and some surprising moral ambiguity as the heroes set themselves against a man who only wishes to have their personal quest not result in the dragon slaughtering his community. But an end, that comes so abruptly that it's obvious that material is being saved just to squeeze out another film by hook or by crook, leaves a somewhat sour taste.

5/10