 |  It's beginning to look a lot like Middle-earth around here. Peter Jackson's latest opus, The Desolation Of Smaug, hits cinemas today and includes the best log-flume ride we've ever seen, a trick arrow shot we're still trying to replicate (Ali refuses to stand with an apple on his head so we can practice, the spoilsport) and the best dragon this side of Pete's. To celebrate, we have video interviews with the principal cast and a feature discussing whether dragons could ever really exist, scientifically speaking (stupid scientists, spoiling our fun). We're also going to have lots of Hobbity goodness on the podcast today and on Monday, when our spoiler special will go live. And as if that weren't enough, we continue our review of 2013 with a look at this year's worst films, best fights and most memorable quotes among much more. What a year it's been for the word "Neveruary", eh? Helen O'Hara
Deputy Online Editor, Empire
 
Transformers: Age Of Extinction Exclusive! Subscribe Today And Get Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag!
Bizarre incidents with air-conditioners aside, Michael Bay's Transformers: Age Of Extinction is coming together nicely in China and Michigan. This month's cover star, Optimus Prime, granted us an access-all-areas pass to Bay's latest, ahem, mechsterpiece to get the skinny of the next phase of the blockbuster auteur's empire building. Prepare the awesome. VIP print and digital packages Subscribe to Empire magazine Take a look inside this issue of Empire magazine Buy single iPad editions on the App Store View all subscription offers
  Godzilla Trailer Smashes Online
After the teases and viral pics, leaked footage and Comic-Con reactions, the new, Gareth Edwards-spawned version of Godzilla is finally ready to make his grand entrance in the shape of a trailer. Take a gander, but watch out for flying debris... More: Latest Sherlock Series 3 Trailer Lands It's gone interactive... Jupiter Ascending Trailer Lands 'Some lives will always matter more than others...' Edge Of Tomorrow Trailer Blasts The Web Live. Die. Repeat. New Rio 2 Trailer Flies Online Blu & Jewell are off to the Amazon. Second Trailer For Mr. Peabody & Sherman They could make (or break) history. New Grudge Match Clip Lands It's Sylvester Stallone's punch-out. New Clip From The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty Ben Stiller is going to need a bigger boat... Calvary Trailer Arrives Brendan Gleeson is a turbulent priest. Bad Words Trailer Spells Red Band Laughs Jason Bateman crashes the spelling bee. New Muppets Most Wanted Muppisode Online Second slice of surrealism from Amer directors.
  A pair of rather lovely-looking i30 headphones from Turtle Beach. Noise cancelling, invisible mic and super squishy ear pads - yes please!
 Would it be wrong to get a cardigan that makes your boobs look like Deadpool?  An office musing prompted by this.
The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug Interviews
The second instalment of Peter Jackson's treasure-quest, The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug, sees our brave company of Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman) and his dwarf friends brave orcs, giant spiders, hostile elves and an overgrown lizard in their quest to reclaim the Kingdom of Erebor from the dragon Smaug (Benedict Cumberbatch). We sat down with the cast in LA recently to find out what was involved and learn where Martin Freeman keeps his Empire award... | |
|  | | Empire Presents the New York Film Academy
New York Film Academy has built a reputation as one of the premier film schools in the world. With its innovative hands-on approach to teaching, students find themselves completely immersed in their course of study, surrounded by award-winning faculty and working with state-of-the-art equipment and facilities. Learn Filmmaking, Acting for Film, Photography, Musical Theatre, Game Design, Animation and more. |
|  | | The Worst Films Of 2013
Well, they can't all be Gravity. This may have been a largely fragrant year for film, but there had to be some stinkers. The law of averages demands it, and, as laws go, that one's a stickler. Here are the dirtiest dozen of the films released in cinemas this year... |
|  | | 2013's Biggest WTF Moments In Movies
Sometimes, a film contains something so utterly bizarre that there's just no accounting for it. Whether it's pausing the action for a quick striptease or karaoke session or an attitude to physical science that can only be described as cavalier, here are the moments that made us double-take this year - along with a couple of short explanations of how these things came about from the people who made them happen. |
|  | | 20 Great Films From 2013 You (Probably) Didn't Watch
Everyone and their granny knows that this year saw the release of Iron Man 3 and The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug, but there was a huge amount of quality hidden away from the big multiplexes, in art-house cinemas and at festivals all over the world. Not all the films featured on this list have had a UK cinema release to date, but make sure to seize any opportunity to see them if you spot them showing near you or on DVD... |
|  | | The Best Fights Of 2013
Superheroes, action men, clones, kaiju, news anchors, politicians, pub-crawlers and ninjas battled it out on cinema screens this year, and we cheered them all. As Christmas approaches, here's a festive reminder that nothing delights and unites us like spectacular conflict. Er... or something... |
|  | | The Best Quotes Of 2013
The perfectly-crafted movie bon mot is a thing of beauty and a joy for ever. If it can be adapted to situations in your own life, all the better. Here we assemble the lines that have been ringing around the Empire office all year, or which we think are particularly well-crafted. |
|  | | Empire's Music Playlist Of 2013
It was a year that began with Anne Hathaway dreaming a dream in Les Misérables and ended with Jason Schwartzman, B.J. Novak and company flying Saving Mr. Banks's toe-tapping kite. Somewhere in the middle Backstreet came back in This Is The End, The World's End got Loaded, Hans Zimmer belted out more of his magisterial cues on Rush and Man Of Steel, and the kings and queens of indiedom vied for a spot on the Catching Fire soundtrack. Here are our picks of the year's movie playlist, with a Spotify version right at the very end. |
|  | | Film Studies 101: The A-Z Of The Birth Of Cinema
As Alien's John Hurt will tell you, births can be painful things. But when the moving picture popped out of the tummy of the 19th century and scurried off in the general direction of Paris, London and California, the only sensations were novelty and excitement. As the new medium took shape, pioneers like the Lumière brothers, Eadweard Muybridge and Georges Méliès blew minds and popped eyeballs with whirring, humming contraptions that projected moving images as if by a kind of devilish sorcery. As Empire's Film Studies 101 gets underway, it's time to go back to the very beginning. Welcome to a wonderful world of inventors, contraptions, nickelodeons, even a magician or two. Don your scrubs for the birth of cinema. |
|  | | Benedict Cumberbatch Talks Sherlock Series 3
Benedict Cumberbatch was just about to wade through the crowds of waiting fans ready to see him shoot outside the BBC's 221B location - 187 North Gower Street, Camden, fact fans - when we carried out this interview. With his head right in the thick of Sherlock, Empire grilled him about keeping secrets, Breaking Bad and Elementary... |
|  | | Martin Freeman Talks Sherlock Series 3
Martin Freeman has been very busy of late with The Hobbit, but he still found time back in March - on the first day of shooting in London for the upcoming third series, no less - to talk about how things were going in Baker Street. This is the result, with Doctor Watson speaking about such varied topics as fan mail, punching Sherlock and his most excellent suits. |
|  | | Steven Moffat And Mark Gatiss Talk Sherlock Series 3
In addition to their photoshoot in this month's issue of Empire - which has bonus iPad features that allow you to look around the 221B set and hear about the props - here's another chat with the superstar Sherlock writers, with the conversation touching on everything from Irene Adler to brains in jars... |
|  | | X-Men: Apocalypse - The Facts
All it took was three words on Twitter from Bryan Singer, and suddenly we've got another new X-Men movie set for 2016, a mere two years after Days Of Future Past. "#Xmen #Apocalypse" quoth the once and present X-director. What's he talking about? Here's what we've got... |
|  | | Could Dragons Exist? We Ask An Expert
Smaug the Tremendous, the Chiefest and Greatest of Calamities, is one of a long history of literary and filmic dragons. "My teeth are swords, my wings a hurricane and breath death," he boasts to Bilbo. But could such a creature ever have existed in the real world? "It's highly improbable," Dr Peter Hogarth of the University of York's biology department patiently explains to us... |
|  | | Bruce Dern Talks Nebraska
Alexander Payne's latest movie, the wistful and sometimes wicked Nebraska, opened in the UK on Friday. If you haven't seen it yet, go seek it out. But the film first made a huge splash back in May at the Cannes Film Festival, and it was there that we spoke to three of its stars - June Squibb, former Saturday Night Live stalwart Will Forte, and the film's lead, the effortlessly loquacious Bruce Dern. Enjoy. |
|  | | The 50 Best Films Of 2013
It's December, and as is traditional, we've asked Empire's writers to vote for their favourite films of the year. The assembled results have since been turned into this, a list of the very best 2013 had to offer. All films released from January 1 to December 31 in the UK were eligible, and we've included (but not ranked) three movies that several of our number have seen, but not enough to vote on fairly. So read on and at the end, check how many you've seen yourself... |
|  | | The Jameson Empire Awards: Vote For Your Favourite Movies Of 2013
Looking for gift ideas this Christmas? Here's one: a 2014 calendar. And the minute you get your hands on it, put a big red circle around March 30. For that's the date on which the Jameson Empire Awards 2014 - the most irreverent and fun awards show around - will take place. As ever, it'll be an amazing night filled with A-listers galore, as we reward the best films of the year (and the people who made them). But we couldn't do it without you. Voting for the 2014 Awards is now open, which is where you come in. Simply plump for your favourites in each category in the following form, and you could be chosen at random to attend the awards. |
 A plethora of piñata to celebrate the home entertainment release of 2 Guns. This thing ended up in an even worse state than the cars in the film.
 
Luke Evans likes fish. 
Benedict Cumberbatch went to see komodo dragons before auditioning for Smaug. 
Jimmy Nesbitt's faith in Manchester United is unwavering despite their recent form. 
That's all Jeremy Renner's own hair in American Hustle. 
People still find it hard to tell the difference between Mark Wahlberg and Matt Damon.
 |  | |  | |  | |  | | | A baby doing trick shots, plus Channing Tatum and Bradley Cooper. | | What to do when it snows. | | The Voice of Smaug, old and new. | | Insanely clever fanmade Doctor Who / Sherlock crossover. |
If you have any timewasters to share, then e-mail them in to us. |  Star Trek: The Next Generation season 5 on Blu-ray - the one where Spock turns up for the Unification two-parter. Can't wait!
 
The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug 
Middle-earth's got its mojo back. A huge improvement on the previous instalment, this takes our adventurers into uncharted territory and delivers spectacle by the ton. And in case you were wondering, yes, someone manages to say the title as dialogue. Also Out
 
The Conjuring 
A strong cast and an atmosphere of real dread mean that despite a catalogue of immediately recognisable ghost devices, The Conjuring amounts to more than the sum of its scary parts. If it's Wan's farewell to horror - Insidious: Chapter 2 notwithstanding - it's a darkly powerful final word. Also Out
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