I wasn't a big fan of the first Hobbit movie, but that being part one of a trilogy, I suppose they needed to introduce all the characters, and set up the plot for the second movie. Therefore the second movie hits the ground running, and doesn't really stop for nearly three hours. As Laurence Kasdan says in the Star Wars documentary, part two of a trilogy is the most interesting part, because that's where everything goes to hell. And this movie is a roller coaster ride all the way through. Like I said, I have no idea how the movie is different from the book, and I don't really care. I just care about how this movie stands up as a movie, and I found it pretty good fun all the way through. I've read some reviews on IMDB, and there's a lot of criticism going on. I thought some of them were quite harsh, considering it's basically a Saturday morning cartoon action movie, although a couple of story things seemed strange (Why were the Elves protecting the dwarves from the Orcs, after the Dwarves had escaped from the Elves dungeons?...) It appears that Peter Jackson has taken great liberties with the basic story in the book. I don't have a problem with that. A book does not work as a film. The best you can hope for is that the film is a decent summary of the book.
One thing I did like with this film that I didn't like in the first one was the look of it. When I saw the first one, the image was extremely sharp, and reminded me of one of those old seventies video taped TV shows. I found it quite hard to watch (And it was my first 3D movie, so maybe my brain wasn't trained for it yet). Fortunately, this second movie is a lot softer. It's still sharp video, but it now looks closer to regular film. The screening I went to was supposedly in HFR (High Frame Rate), but what exactly is that meant to give you? I honestly didn't notice any difference to a regular 3D movie.
The ending was quite abrupt and unexpected. It would have been nice to have a bit better lead in to the next movie.
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