TheRetroCritic

Another year, another Peter Jackson epic about little people walking towards pointy mountains. What is this? 2002? After the decent yet slightly underwhelming The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey , it was time to kick things up a notch. At least entertainment-wise because one involving action scene in a three-hour-long movie isn't going to cut it. Not again, anyway. Luckily, with The Desolation Of Smaug , we need not waste time in The Shire (always the least compelling place in those movies) for there's a Lonely Mountain to finally reach with a big friggin' dragon inside of it. The film, happily, doesn't disappoint. This time around, Bilbo and his dwarf buddies not only face a marijuana-injected forest peopled with big-ass spiders but also an unfriendly bunch of elves, orcs aplenty, some Manimal -style bear dude, Stephen Fry and, of course, good old Benedict Smaug-berbatch. Similarly to how The Fellowship Of The Ring ended, key players in the main story are now

Post Batman & Robin , back when superhero movies weren't quite as common and quite as expensive as they are today, Marvel decided to take advantage of Batman's irritating demise and kick-start their own rise with the X-Men franchise. Being an X-Fan myself, this was a big deal and, although the result wasn't quite as mind-blowing as I had expected, there was still a lot to enjoy in this first instalment. For one thing, the character introductions were excellent: whether it was Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) cage-fighting or a young Magneto prying open the doors of a concentration camp, the pieces were perfectly set and the show was ready to begin. Only, it doesn't so much begin as it does... go on. This first movie really is just one slow build-up to the X-Men finally becoming a team. And, for the most part, director Bryan Singer does get the characters right: Patrick Stewart makes a spot-on Xavier, Jackman is great (if tall) as Wolverine, Ian McKellen's turn