Entertaining, though there's something missing...

Rating: 8/10 (21 December 2014)

As a whole, Jackson's "Hobbit" trilogy suffers from over-stretching: From a book of 271 pages, you just can't create a three-part movie saga of a similar length as "Lord of the Rings" without quite a lot of stretching. Jackson does this with drawn-out battle sequences and adding some plot elements entirely of his (and the other scriptwriters') making. As a person who first read "The Hobbit" in childhood and is still very fond of the book, I think the first part of Jackson's version nonetheless is a beautiful adaptation, reasonably close to the book and well paced. I have criticized the second part, "The Desolation of Smaug", for going too far in its story-stretching approach. To some extent, that can be said of this third part as well. Still, I think it's better able to keep the viewer's attention and it has some astonishing visuals (as well as some that look rather like they belong into a video game...). The acting is fine, Howard Shore's music fitting as usual.
Yet: I wonder why Jackson, with all this need to fill a long film with content, left out an important scene from the book: After all, the Arkenstone story line is pretty central, isn't it? Thorin's yearning for the Arkenstone, treasuring it above everything else, and Bilbo's attempt to use it as a means of reconciliation. In the book, Thorin fittingly is buried with his Arkenstone - and Orcrist, the sword the Elves had taken from him. In the movie, not only is Thorin's burial left out completely (we just get a short scene of the dwarfs mourning at the dead body), but the viewer is also left to wonder what became of the Arkenstone. It's as if everyone has completely forgotten the wondrous gem at the end. I think that must seem strange even to those who haven't read Tolkien's book: Making much ado about that gem, only to never mention it again after the battle? I can only assume (or hope) that an extended edition of the movie will probably contain Thorin's burial, thus giving the story a better rounding. Also, some elements aren't used to their full potential, most notably the "were-worms"... they appear to be quite a threat, but after a few seconds of screen time, we never see them or hear of them again. Having said all that, I think it's an entertaining movie and I even give it a star more than the preceding one...