Seduced by gold

Rating: 3/10 (9 March 2015)

And finally a moderately length children's book beloved to generations of kids (I read The Hobbit over 3 decades ago) comes to a conclusion on screen.
When the dragon Smaug meets a sharp end in the opening ten minutes and the credits begin, I thought the story had ended. In fact it was just the beginning of a return journey which would take a further two hours and a bit.
In that time Thorin gets seduced by the Gold, goes back on his word and promises. Various armies gather and there are epic battles with decapitations and Legolas becomes a super elf.
Bilbo becomes a secondary character in his own story and although the battles in what is mainly CGI is entertaining the whole enterprise is rather pointless as it should had been tagged on in the last movie.
Ryan Gage's scenes as the cowardly Alfrid looks misjudged, Lee Pace as Thranduil is an arrogant bore
The film does provide a bridge to the Lord of the Rings trilogy with characters such as Saruman, Galadriel, Elrond turning up and fighting which kind of reminded me of the Star Wars prequel and Christopher Lee's stunt double was in those scenes as well.
Lets be plain, The Hobbit films were turned into a trilogy because they were seen as a cash cow and this cow was throughly milked.