I am a huge Lord of the Rings Fan. I grew up watching the movies, and reading the books. I was very excited when The Hobbit was announced back in 2010. Last year, the first Hobbit film of the trilogy was released. While I think it had some problems, I still loved it. I watched it at least 3 times at the movies. A couple of weeks ago the sequel came out, and I can safely say that it met and even surpassed my expectations. While it still had several problems, I enjoyed it even more than the first one. I’ll start of with the negative: It had some poor special effects. This is not a huge negative, but it took me out of the experience. On occasion it felt like I was watching a video game. This mainly occurred during the last scenes that took place in Erebor. With the negatives aside, I can gush about everything the film got right. The action in this film was top notch. Particularly the barrel scene. I had so much fun with the action that it definitely made the 2 hours and 41 minutes go by much quicker. I thought the performances were all great too. Martin Freeman is perfect as Bilbo, and Richard Armitage continues proving himself as a capable Thorin. Sir Ian McKellen is also fantastic as usual. It was great seeing Orlando Bloom as Legolas, and newcomer Evangeline Lilly was great as Tauriel. I really enjoyed Howard Shore’s score as well. Smaug the Dragon is also fantastic. He is truly a sight to behold. Overall, I was very pleased with this Hobbit sequel. It gave me everything I wanted and more. Despite some technical issues, this is one of the most enjoyable films of the year and I can’t wait to watch it a third time.