The Hobbit : The Desolation of Smaug

[raj101]

[Oh I see. I haven't read the Lord of the Rings in ages. Don't even remember the appendices in that one.

they don't have much appeal once you get through the preceeding thousands+ pages lol. (but I admit I have read them painstakingly to the letter, in that slightly insane way you do when you first discover books aged 12 and you think cor blimey this beats staring at marbles and conkers all day).

[prettyxcool]

I arrived just in time to see Beate going into Screen 7, when I joined the end of a very long queue, many thanks for saving me seats. Lovely to catch caitlinmorton, cinefila1, pcrock and a_person too!

Much more enjoyable than the first film. Amazing and incredible, beautiful scenery, lots of action and excitement, and humour. The CGI and visual effects were really impressive, my only gripe was the 3D made it rather gloomy and dark! However at the fan event, I do not remember it being so dark, at the time I thought the colours were really bright and vibrant. Based on my enjoyment 8/10. My OH liked it too and gave it 8/10. He is mellowing with his marks

[LondonCityNights]

They refused to turn the lights off properly in the cinema, even though I asked! Made me unreasonably annoyed. I was expecting Beate to leap up and head right to the lighting console - you're officially the cinema auditorium lighting guru now btw.

[opas]

I think I preferred the first film. It wasn't awful but I wasn't taken by it and found myself looking at my watch several times. I like 3d but found it distractingly dark, especially at the beginning.

Nice to see Luke Evans as Bard (I'll watch anything he is in) so I am looking forward to the next instalment but it didn't grip me in the same way the other films did (i'm including the LOTR trilogy too) however that is a high bar to cross as I thought they were all excellent. 7/10.

[asamaic]

They refused to turn the lights off properly in the cinema, even though I asked! Made me unreasonably annoyed. I was expecting Beate to leap up and head right to the lighting console - you're officially the cinema auditorium lighting guru now btw.

Talking of people who don't take crap, we were amused by the security man who threatened to not only stop the film but kick everyone out if one person played with their phone. I guess it worked, I didn't see any annoying flashes of light during the film.

[rawsalsa]

I was incredibly grateful for getting last minute tickets from a lovely fmuker to see this, however I was disappointed that they had not used the Superscreen at the O2 for this screening.

Overall I liked this - compared to the first Hobbit film. I thought the 3D worked rather well in many parts and I thought the 2 and 1/2 hours went past rather quickly. I read the book eons ago, which is why I probably enjoyed it compared to my son (who has read the books more recently) and said he found the film boring and predictable because of the additional "unnecessary" material they added to pad the story out. I'd give it 8/10, he said he'd give it 6/10.

[Beate]

They refused to turn the lights off properly in the cinema, even though I asked! Made me unreasonably annoyed. I was expecting Beate to leap up and head right to the lighting console - you're officially the cinema auditorium lighting guru now btw.

Talking of people who don't take crap, we were amused by the security man who threatened to not only stop the film but kick everyone out if one person played with their phone. I guess it worked, I didn't see any annoying flashes of light during the film.

LOL, I might have done but they seemed off from where I was sitting. What annoyed me much more is that they never put the lights on properly before the film and make everyone stumble through the dark instead.

Yeah the security guy was on a power trip, but it worked. I appreciate little dictators now and then. There were people checking their twitter timeline during Mandela and it drove me nuts.

[rawsalsa]

Yeah the security guy was on a power trip, but it worked. I appreciate little dictators now and then. There were people checking their twitter timeline during Mandela and it drove me nuts.

I agree. I actually thanked the security guy afterwards, particularly for asking people to put up their hands if they had a spare seat by them, so that people were able to find seats quickly and at the same time causing less disturbance to people already seated.

[funthing29]

A Peter Jackson film from Tolkien’s mythology will always be a sight to behold but this IMO is the weakest out of the 5 films so far. It is not a bad film per se it just feels like filler between the opener and closer of The Hobbit story.

It was patchy overall with too many (unnecessary) subplots and the story lacked fluidity. Bilbo was almost relegated to the background and had little in the way of characterisation. While I did enjoy the barrel fight scenes and the sequence with Smaug at the end unfortunately the film as a whole felt like a succession of set pieces.

Visually impressive but overly long and uneven. 6.5/10.

[FBS]

Thoroughly enjoyed it, more so than the first (and I really liked that one). Much more going on throughout and some damn fine action pieces - The water barrels especially. The final hour was probably some of the most riveting stuff out of the two films so far, CumberDragon certainly rules the roost.
It didn't feel like two and a half hours as it flew by.

Oh, and did anyone spot the Peter Jackson cameo?
I won't mention where it was