An effects spectacle

Rating: 7/10 (23 May 2015)

I decided from the very start to take this film for what it was gonna be and that was a finale with the most epic of battles. As far as story and characters go, the movie does resonate with me on a couple of things. First and foremost, Thorin's transition from a man obsessed with power to a fighting warrior that is willing to die for his brothers is one of the good things this movie brings. Bilbo is also another character that gets good closure, and let's be honest, it would be a travesty if he didn't since he is in the movie's title. Regardless of how you felt about their objective, the battle scenes were terrificly shot and added to the overall scope of the film.
Still not all is well with this final chapter in the saga, such as the misguided way to highlight all stories in the movie. It straight up continues on from the end of DOS, as it takes care of that in the first 20 minutes, making it only the official end of the previous movie. With Desolation Of Smaug we still had a meet up between Gandalf and Thorin prior to the mission, something I felt was a good way to start an individual chapter. Once again, criticism of how the book was divided is reasonable. I think with some good editing, these three movies could have easily become one 3-hour single film with each of the three movies made taking one hour. Instead we got what we got and it ended up only having some good moments when compared to the ultimate journey that was The Lord Of The Rings.
So to close this review, I say that The Hobbit trilogy had its ups and downs. I found the first one nothing more than a set-up with some dullness behind it. The second one upped the ante and is my favorite of the trilogy and the last one tried its best to wrap up everything in a pleasing fashion. Having come after the LOTR movies, the comparison was always gonna be unfair and given that a trilogy was drawn out of one book, the adaptation was always going to be difficult. Despite this, I appreciated the efforts and actually found the last 2 movies to be quite entertaining if slightly muddled in their overall cuts.
Rating: 7,5-8/10