The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (12A) ***
The Stars: Martin Freeman, Ian McKellen, Richard Armitage, Benedict Cumberbatch, Evangeline Lilly.
The Story: The second in the trilogy of films where Bilbo Baggins joins forces with a group of dwarves to reclaim their lost Kingdom of Erebor.
Returning to Middle Earth saw Jackson turning a source novel that was barely 300 pages into three films.
And with the first Hobbit film - An Unexpected Journey - it showed. You felt every one of its 166 minutes as the ponderous pace marked a shaky start to the series.
The good news is that The Desolation of Smaug is a marked improvement on its predecessor, though it still has huge problems with pacing and storytelling power.
Picking up where the first movie finished - and running to a bum-numbing 161 minutes - Smaug sees Bilbo Baggins (Freeman) continue his journey to reclaim the lost city of Erebor.
Joining him in his quest are the Wizard Gandalf and a group of thirteen dwarves lead by their king Thorin (Armitage). And Baggins still has the invisibility cloaking ring safely concealed in his pocket - which could come in handy when they run into the terrifying dragon Smaug, voiced by British actor of the moment, Benedict Cumberbatch.
Where its predecessor took ages to get moving courtesy of an overlong hour of Come Dine With Me - dwarf style, this is more full of incident. The group encounters peril, and some creepy giant spiders, as they approach the wrath of Smaug.
And there’s even a touch of illicit romance when the warrior elf Tauriel (a very good Evangeline Lilly) falls for the charms of the diminutive Kili.
What a shame, then, that what should have been a thrilling climax is overcooked by Jackson, as we get a stretched final encounter with the CGI-heavy Smaug.
Far Out Isn’t Far Enough (15A) ****
This hugely entertaining documentary charts the life and times of the maverick artist and illustrator, who provoked reaction through some of the most extraordinary and volatile periods in history.
The film charts how Ungerer grew up under Nazi rule near Strasbourg in France, where he had to learn how to speak German in four months. Embraced by the Nazi propaganda culture, his drawings were encouraged as long as they were anti-Jewish.
After flunking high school, Ungerer became exposed to American culture through magazines like The New Yorker and went to America on a cargo ship at the age of 25.
He looked at all of the magazines where he would like to work, and went to visit them with his drawings under his arms. He put them in a large wholesale box for Trojan condoms, which helped him grab the attention of editors.
It coincided with a golden age for illustration in the US. Ungerer started designing collages and drawings for advertising campaigns
He built on this success to become an extremely successful children’s book illustrator who became famed for showing children elements of fear.
The documentary also charts how Ungerer started developing The Underground Sketchbook after becoming disgusted by racial segregation in the US in the 1960, as the country was in the midst of a civil rights revolution.
The illustrations became more satirical still after the Cuban Missile Crisis and when America became involved in the Vietnam War.
His work went to become controversial for other reasons when he started charting the sexual revolution.
He came under huge attack at a children’s book convention when audience members challenged him for working in both childrens’ book illustration and erotica. It led to him being shunned and his childrens’ books being banned from libraries.
The documentary also shows how Tomi has found new energy in his current home near Bantry in West Cork.
It’s a fascinating story, made all the more entertaining by the back that many of the stories are retold by the witty and mischievous Ungerer himself.
