The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, the second instalment of Peter Jackson's fantasy trilogy based on JRR Tolkien's book, has gotten positive assessments from critics.

Jackson's debut Hobbit film, An unpredicted Journey, received only lukewarm garlands from reviewers, in contrast to the critical adoration fostered by the New Zealand film-maker's Lord of the Rings trilogy a decade ago. But part two, which features the introduction of Smaug, the Benedict Cumberbatch-voiced dragon, is picking up strong early reviews.

 

Todd McCarthy of the entertainment Reporter writes:

 

Nearly everything … represents an improvement over the first instalment of Peter Jackson's three-part adaptation of JRR Tolkien's beloved creation," "as soon as exhibiting an almost craven fidelity to his source material the first time out, Jackson gets the drama in gear here from the outset with a sense of storytelling that possesses palpable energy and purpose. Toward the end, his evergreen tendency to let bloat creep in reasserts itself to an extent … he has a hard time knowing when enough is enough even as the three-hour goalpost looms dead ahead. But for the most part he moves the episodic tale along having reasonable speed for a leviathan while serving up enough fights, close shaves and action-filled melodrama for an old-fashioned movie serial or a advanced video game.

 

Nick de Semlyen of Empire magazine labels The forlornness of Smaug "a huge upgrading on the previous instalment". He writes:

 

One problem with the former film was in which it re-trod too closely the footsteps of the Fellowship: it was difficult to share Bilbo's awe at entering Rivendell, given that we'd already been there 11 years before. Here, you can feel Jackson's relief at having entirely new worlds in which to play.

 

The forest domain of the Silvan Elves has beauty edged with menace … but the real standouts are Lake-town and Erebor, contrasting but equally stunning exhibits of production design. The former, a fog-shrouded, Dickensian burg that we're informed 'stinks of fish oil and tar', is a new, pleasingly earthy flavour for Middle-earth. Kingdom-under-the-mountain Erebor, on the other hand, is the kind of mad location that could only exist on a Weta mega-computer, its centrepiece a stash of wealth so vast it would give Scrooge McDuck some sort of quacking fit.

My colleague Peter Bradshaw is also impressed with the manner in which Jackson has "picked up the pace" in part two.

 

He says in his four-star review: http://ebook-pdf.net/the-hobbit-pdf-download/

 

The Desolation of Smaug is a blissfully entertaining and exhilarating adventure tale, a supercharged Saturday morning picture.

 

It's mysterious and strange and yet helen hunt jackson also effortlessly conjures up that genial quality that distinguishes The Hobbit from the more solemn Rings stories. The absurdity is winning: you're laughing with, not smiling at. For me, it never sagged once in its mighty two hour 40 minutes running time and the high-frame-rate projection for this film somehow looks richer and denser when compared with it did the last time round. Jackson has displayed that he is an expert in big-league popular movie-making to rival Lucas and Spielberg.

 

The Telegraph's Robbie Collin, yet, remains unimpressed with Jackson's decision to film a breezy children's tome as three epic movies. He reckons part two is "mostly stalling for time" and largely dismisses it as "not one but two or three truly great sequences tangled up in long beards and longer pit-stops".

 

Adds Collin:

 

The tone is 100% Jackson – a kind of thundering gloominess, trimmed with the occasional glint of Discworld mischief. Jackson and his co-writers, Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens, have decapitated bodies twitching on the ground, and a captured dwarf leering at a female elf: 'Aren't you going to search me? I could have anything down my trousers.' Maybe this really is what a lot of people want to see from a film version of The Hobbit, but let's at least accept that Tolkien will probably not have been among them.

 

The new film currently has a rating of 79% on the overview aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes, a full 13-point gain on predecessor An Unexpected Journey, if hardly Oscars-bait acreage. The Desolation of Smaug arrives in cinemas worldwide on 13 December 2013.