The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

The Dwarves, Bilbo and Gandalf have successfully escaped the Misty Mountains, and Bilbo has gained the One Ring. They all continue their journey to get their gold back from the Dragon, Smaug.

A clear step up from An Unexpected Journey in the eyes of most critics, with Smaug himself drawing near-universal admiration — but the film's padding of a slim novel into a bloated trilogy remained a genuine fault line, with some reviewers finding two or three great sequences buried under too much filler. The middle-chapter structure and the addition of a love triangle were particular flashpoints.