Review – The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

And here the weak spots in Jackson's expansion of Tolkein start to show. I'm not enough of a purist to automatically object to new characters and subplots. However, I didn't particularly enjoy the extended video-game-ization of the story. For example, the famous barrel escape scene becomes a drawn-out orc/dwarf/elf battle that looks and feels like the Playstation version of a water slide. On the other hand, when the production settles down and tells a story, it's as good as any other picture in the Hobbit/LOTR series. After watching the first two sets of Sherlock, I particularly enjoyed the dialogue between Martin Freeman (Bilbo Baggins) and Benedict Cumberbatch (Smaug). Mildly amusing