Review: The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug

First things first: there are no songs, no washing up scenes and no fucking eagles in The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug, which immediately makes it a better film than its predecessor. The eyeball-molesting increased frame rate of An Unexpected Journey has also been, if not dropped, then less loudly trumpeted for this film, which is another blessed relief. You'd almost be fooled into thinking that Peter Jackson has been listening to his critics, were it not for the fact that Desolation is still an obscenely long, slightly dull, inferior version of a Lord Of The Rings film.