A year ago we were all whisked back to Middle Earth as Peter Jackson finally unveiled how The Hobbit would work as three long movies, and it was an impressively upbeat romp, a light-hearted fun adventure with a slim sense of peril but lovable characters, action sequences and a strong relationship between Bilbo, Gandalf and Thorin. Naturally people did not like the idea that a childrens book adaptation would be anything less than hopeless, bleak and miserable, so The Desolation Of Smaug changes tone completely, no songs, no jokes, everything that was bright and colourful has a darker and washed-out edge to it, and people are mopey and discussing dark things to come. It's all very down-beat and angry and a teenager trying to express its feelings without actually knowing how to express anything, so lashes out with loud explosions and then simmers down for hours at a time with whispered discussions about death and destruction. A lot of effort to look after until it finally decides to go back into its room and stop annoying everyone for another year.

From the first sequence, well, perhaps after an almost waving-at-the-camera cameo from Mr. Jackson himself, the look of the film is dark and foreboding, and a pre-title scene in a pub with Gandalf and Thorin lacks the spark that made An Unexpected Journey so light to the touch and joyful. They talk about bounties on heads, the lack of ability to do what must be done, violence, darkness, mumble mumble mumble, and then we're in slightly brighter Middle Earth a year later, where somehow our heroes have got off the rock they were stuck on at the credits last year and are being chased by the orcs and a beast of some sort (Which bares no relation to any of the plot of this film, but drags the first 25 minutes out considerably). From here on out, the enjoyable fun of the last film is taken away as we don't focus on Bilbo or Gandalf or Thorin and the relationships between one another, in the first half hour the Pale Orc has much more dialogue, all of it subtitled and generic, and after some needless chases across hills, we enter a forest. Maybe the trees will whimsically talk, or another crazy wizard like Sylvester McCoy will appear being kooky and, oh no, it's massive evil spiders yelling and screaming at the cameras and then being brutally massacred. Violence and terror, classic Lord Of The Rings, not The Hobbit, stuff.

By the time we make it to the wood elf city, where Legolas and Tauriel are no-where near as enjoyable as Hugo Weaving and Brett McKenzie in the last film, any hope for light airy adventure has been lost, and even with the elves all we get is mopey dialogue about darkness, betrayal, evil, villainy, nary a song to be found. The one saving grace of this entire first hour is a barrel river chase that, whilst well shot, often finds itself too pulled away from all the action, even in the third dimension. Some ingenious ways of killing orcs are put on screen by Jackson, and it's fun for a while, until the film finds enjoyment in many shots of orc decapitation, often as the head is flung towards the screen. You know, for kids. It's a few shades off-colour and just a little too wrong-footed. Jackson wants to return to the darker, more mature Middle Earth, but he's using a light-hearted adventure novel to tell his dark story, and it is awkward. In addition, Legolas seems to do no wrong in battle, he has a few action sequences all of which are inconsequential and just show the man flinging his bow and arrows at folk for a long time. It's not as boring as the Man Of Steel fight scenes, but it's as mind-numbing and pace-stopping.

The last hour is dedicated to Benedict Cumberbatch Smauging it up as a big unfriendly dragon, breathing fire and anger upon visitors to his lair, as the fellowship of the arconstone try to take down this viscious beast, and in one looooooooong sequence (Must be at least 15 minutes) we see the gang devise a way to put an end to his villainy. This would have been really interestingly done had it been towards the start of the second film in a two film franchise, but by the time we get here in this film, it's been far too long and not much has happened of note. As such, the sequence plays out to a mind-numbed audience wondering how long until the credits, rather than 'how'll they escape this one?', and mixed with Cumberbatch's rather hair-brained dialogue as a big eloquent dragon, threat and fun are removed from the equation. The film ends with a giant middle finger for anyone interested in watching a film which could at least offer some climax. The first film had a wonderful ending where character arcs were completed to a degree, but this film forgets all about that, and those characters, just to get a plot going that doesn't thrill without heroes to root for.

Bland, dull, joyless, overlong, The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug is not the holiday film to catch this year, it fails by comparison to the first film, and to the first LOTR trilogy. A messy, boring event movie made for financial reasons, the lack of any climax is a really ugly state of affairs for the franchise, and the inclusion of Legolas is just cringeworthy. That the film is well shot, with great music, effects, 3D, and what little the actors get to do is done well at the least is a great shame for what this film could have been. It's not one for kids and families, far too angry, mean and dark, and yet there's nothing much for anyone seeing as so very little happens of note. Come back next year, maybe There And Back Again will offer us more joy and another Unexpected Journey.