Worst of the six

Rating: 5/10 (22 December 2014)

The Tolkien saga is finished. For now. As expected this trilogy didn't come even close to the original The Lord of the Rings trilogy. But, as an almost unconditional fan, I must admit I did enjoy every one of The Hobbit movies. The first one was a bit too slow and the second one made some narrative choices I didn't like, but in the end I just took it like a true fanboy. Unfortunately this wasn't the case for the final episode. Not that it didn't entertain. Not that it didn't have its moments. It just didn't do any justice to what I think is probably one of the best children's stories ever written. Bilbo was no more than an additional character, the special effects were - apart from Smaug - awful (the scene were Legolas walked over those falling bricks? no... just... no...) and almost the whole scenery took place in and between Dale and Erebor. The best scenes of the movie were those in Laketown and Dol Guldur, which is saying a lot. Apart from one scene at Gundabad and one in the Shire, there weren't even any other locations in this third installment. I know this has to do with the book, but that's just the problem: The Hobbit is shorter than every single book of The Lord of the Rings trilogy. The latter adaptations missed a lot of characters (most notably Tom Bombadil and Ghân, if I remember correctly), but nonetheless the films were diverse, exciting and not rarely very layered. Peter Jackson is a Tolkien lover and it may be that a dream came true for him, but I think Viggo Mortensen (who wasn't in any of The Hobbit movies) was right: Jackson sacrificed substance for technical and financial glory.