Back for round two, my friends and I turned out for the midnight premier of The Hobbit, The Desolation of Smaug on December 13th. The first movie was enjoyable, but it didn’t surpass the level of the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy. The Desolation of Smaug, however, was a much better film than its predecessor.

The movie was over two and a half hours long, even after condensing certain scenes from the book. Similar to the first movie, this one added a large amount of story that wasn’t actually in the book. This time felt different though. The second movie explored sections of the story that were left out of the book, as opposed to adding on to the existing plot as in the first film.

No doubt due to the popularity of the character, Orlando Bloom reprised his role of Legolas, a stoic, talented wood elf. Alongside him was another character absent from the book, Tauriel. Played by Evangeline Lilly, Tauriel was pretty much the only female in the movie that received more than a few seconds of screen time. Undoubtedly, the fully male cast of characters in the book was lacking appeal with a female crowd, so Tauriel was probably added to attract a female audience.

While these two elves were probably not added with the main goal of enhancing the story, they sure managed to accomplish that as well. Weaved wonderfully into the original story, the duo of wood elf archers provided incredibly epic action sequences.

Perhaps my favorite sequence of the film put our party of heroes floating down a river being chased by both elves and orcs. Beautifully choreographed combat not just inspired awe, but caused the entire crowd to break out into laughter, then continue on to blow minds with an action from Tauriel that I literally had to ask my friend if I had seen what I thought I saw. And I did.

I also saw at least two shots in the sequence captured on cameras of much lower quality than the main camera. It wasn’t too big of a concern, but the poor quality footage being spliced into the much higher quality of the rest of the sequence implied a rushed or even just poorly produced film.

On the other hand, the incredible detail of Smaug the dragon blew me away. Voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch, the dragon was completely computer generated. While most of the other CGI didn’t really impress me, Smaug stands out from anything I’ve seen before. Thankfully, the artists and producers and directors went all-out, giving the dragon extensive screen time. The dragon was, in every aspect I could discern, a beautifully crafted and incredibly strong character of the story.

Another villain of the tale is revealed when the movie explores Gandalf’s time away from the company, a story not told by the book. The villain of the LOTR trilogy, Sauron, makes an incredible entrance to the film. Another masterpiece of digitally created sequences, his entrance to the movie radiates with the evil power of the character. In just a few seconds of seeing just one of the shots, its completely clear that he is not only a bad guy, but a bad guy that can ruin the day of everyone in the world.

Even though Bilbo, the main character, seemed to take a smaller part in the movie, he still managed to prove his worth to the company multiple times. Heroically saving the team from multiple encounters with certain death, Bilbo starkly contrasts the character we met at the beginning of the first movie.

There really isn’t much to say against the film, besides the cliffhanger of course. The quick cut to black that signaled the end of the film elicited a collective “aww” of disappointment from the audience.

I definitely enjoyed this movie. Much more so than the first movie, and enough that I will definitely try to see it again. If you haven’t watched the first one, then watch it, because this one was worth seeing them both for even if you didn’t enjoy the first. If you have seen the first, then odds are you probably already have plans to see this one. I can’t wait for the conclusion to the trilogy, but the bar is now set high.