From: mr@sandman.net   
      
   I'll try to be brief.   
      
   A short summary is that the movie was as enjoyable as the first. It follows   
   pretty closely to the book, and make some small changes and some huge.   
      
   Gandalf and Thorin   
   We start in Bree (with PJ eating a carrot!) where it rains... And in the   
   Prancing Pony. You get the feeling that they had to reuse old sets due to   
   financial constraints. It just feels lazy. Thorin is there having a meal   
   and Gandalf joins him. Gandlaf urges him to take back the mountain, so this   
   is a flashback to before the first movie. It's a set piece.   
      
   Then we have the "fellowship" and Bilbo spots a huge bear, and the orcs.   
   They make for the house of Beorn, chased by the bear. They take shelter and   
   Beorn, now a man, enters the house the following morning. The entire   
   one-at-a-time introduction to Beorn is (thankfully) removed and he's just   
   this large (but not large enough if you ask me) man that asks them what   
   they need. They get some ponies to ride for... 20 seconds.   
      
   As expected, Gandlaf leaves when they're about to enter Mirkwood, but he is   
   somehow "summoned" by Galadirel, to go to the tomb. Huh? How is he   
   summoned?   
      
   The gang enters the forest, and I think it's pretty nicely illustrated how   
   the illusions of the forest affects them. Bilbo climbs up a tree and then   
   spiders capture the dwarves. Bilbo kills a spider and frees the dwarves and   
   they fight them all together. And there is a great scene where Bilbo drops   
   the ring and it is blocked by what seems to be a huge albino beetle. Bilbo   
   goes bananas and kills the creature and reclaim his ring, exclaiming "it is   
   mine!" and then there's this really good aftermath expression to his face,   
   as he is starting to realize what the ring is doing to him. Nothing of the   
   sort in the book of course, but it coorelates well with the other books and   
   movies, and Freeman - who I have felt too much of a comedic actor for Bilbo   
   - does a really good job with this scene.   
      
   Even though we've just had action with the spiders, elves joins the fight,   
   killing all the remaining spiders and Legolas comes! And he.. jumps on to a   
   spider and slides on it down a slope.. because.. apparently that's   
   something Legolas does... always. Urgh. Anyway, even though Legolas is not   
   in the book, he certainly belongs here as the son of Thranduil.   
      
   The dwarves are captured and imprisoned. One new character, an elf female   
   called Tauriel is introduced. She seems to fancy Legolas, but Legolas is a   
   prince and it is impossible for them to be together (says Thranduil), and   
   Tauriel seems to fancy Kili (which seems to be at odds with... just about   
   everything) but not "love", per se.   
      
   The dwarves escape accordingly to the book, but in wine barrels. And then -   
   ACTION SCENE!! The barrles are open, not closed, so the dwarves are using   
   them as "boats" more or less, defying all laws pf physics going down some   
   four or five water falls. And then they come upon a gate in the   
   river guarded by elves and they're trapped - orcs attack! Legolas comes to   
   show what a badass he is and a Super Mario sequence ensues like the escape   
   from Misty Mountains. It's over the top and silly. The elves then lets the   
   dwarves escape.   
      
   They meet Bard, who is not the town chief guard, but a barge shipper, who   
   smuggles them into lake town, where they have to hide to not be seen, quite   
   unlike in the book where THorin announces who he is and is met by cheers   
   by the village people.   
      
   They are captured by the guards and only then does THorin announce who is   
   he and promises riches from the mountain.   
      
   They are given food and weapons and trek up the mountain, up to the hidden   
   door, there they obviously can't open the door, and it's the rays of the   
   moon that reveals it, not the sun. And the keyhole isn't revealed by a   
   thrush (as far as I could make out). The open the door and send Bilbo on   
   his way.   
      
   This is the high point of the movie. Bilbi goes into Erebor, which is   
   *ENORMOUS*, and all we see is the treasury room (supposedly) and it's fifty   
   times as large as the halls of Moria! And it is *FILLED* with gold. Must be   
   hundreds of cubic tons of gold in there. And underneath it hides Smaug. I   
   was unsure how much we would see of the dragon. We see plenty. He is voiced   
   by Benedict Cumberbatch and he sounds *GLORIOUS*. Bilbo puts on the ring   
   and Smaug smells him, but Bilbo doesn't talk until he removes his ring...   
   They banter back and forth and it's a really good banter. The voice is just   
   so good. And Smaug looks really good. He has a quirky up-turned mouth   
   (resembling a fish mouth) at the end of it, but it works, and gives him   
   character.   
      
   Bilbo doesn't steal anything and return to the dwarves though, and Smaug   
   doesn't cry bloody murder and fly out to scorch the mountain. No, Bilbo   
   finds the arcenstone which he was already told about and supposedly takes   
   it, and Smaugs doesn't notice. Instead, the dwarves enter the mountain with   
   Smaug still there! We have the set pieces for a new action scene!   
      
   Smaug identifies Thorin, which for all intents or purposes is his biggest   
   enemy, and chases the dwarves around inside the mountain, and we get to the   
   low point of the entire movie. Thorin orders the furnaces to be started,   
   and they trick the dragon to breath fire to start them, melting the gold in   
   them, which they funnel into some form of canals in the rock. Smaug chases   
   them around, breathing fire killing no one. Pretty substandard performance   
   for a dragon, I'd say :)   
      
   And then Smaug finds Bilbo on the floor in the "hall of kings" and just   
   talks to him some more, and then something really strange happens - Smaug   
   blames lake town! I mean, sure, that's what happens in the book, but that's   
   because he is unaware of the dwarves and Thorin. But Thorin is *right   
   there*, yet Smaug starts talking about destroying lake town... But why? He   
   knows the current situation is due to the dwarves! Thorin distracts him,   
   standing on what appears to be a huge *ENORMOUS* stone statue in the hall.   
   A statue so big it even dwarves Smaug himself! He stands there taunting   
   Smaug and then yells "NOW!" and all dwarves releases shackles on the   
   statue, revealing it to be an enormous mould! The rocks fall away revealing   
   a GIGANTIC golden statue of a dwarf!!   
      
   So, hang on now... He just channeled molten gold through Erebor into a   
   statue bigger than the statue of liberty (at least in volume) and it   
   hardened enough in time to stand erect in the span of *minutes*?   
      
   Not only that, after Smaug looks amazed by the statue, it starts.. melting!   
   Yes, the gold that was hard enough to stay erect for a couple of seconds,   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)