What did I just watch

Rating: 1/10 (10 January 2015)

No no no no no. Peter, WHY. What the hell happened? Man, what a painful 144 minutes to sit through.
To be fair, I hated the first two Hobbit films, so if you liked those you'll most likely like this last one too. I only ended up watching this after Into the Woods was sold out of good seats (a film I already watched but enjoyed). Where do I even begin? These Hobbit films are inferior to the LOTR films in every single way. I'm not exactly a Tolkien fanatic in regards to the books, but I loved the LOTR trilogy, which makes the disappointment all the greater. It makes me sad because Peter Jackson seems like a nice enough guy and I know he and everyone else involved exerted a lot of hard work and probably sweat, blood, and tears to make these films. Throughout the entire movie, however, I kept finding myself asking how this could be the same man who directed the excellent, deservingly award-winning LOTR films. First off, Viggo was right when he said Peter got carried away with CG. I guess we were lucky the technology wasn't available yet when the LOTR films were made or we might have ended up with something like The Hobbit. So fake and unrealistic, I never felt transported to Middle Earth like I was always was with LOTR. The sets, the characters, the action. Everything screams fake. Secondly, the script reads like a bad soap opera set in a fantasy world. Eyerollingly melodramatic. Of course, the plot is a dramatic one, but everything comes off so scripted and over-dramatic. Each line slowly and painfully killed me.
While he's not terrible and far from the worst thing in the films, somehow Martin Freeman never sells it as Bilbo for me. He just never naturally embodied the character to me throughout the series, and I felt like all his sputtering and muttering screamed I'M ACTING. However, we have bigger concerns. For instance, WHY is Thorin their leader again? He's never shown throughout the three movies any good reason for being entrusted as one, only showing over and over (and over) again that he's unreasonable, stupidly and irrationally pig-headed, and just plain unlikeable. Even by the end, I couldn't see anything honorable about him. In fact, I just wanted someone to whack him off a cliff. His "conversion of heart"/realization felt fake and again, painfully melodramatic. All he does is brood and say no to, well, everything. I never read the book, so I'm wondering if he was as unlikeable, underdeveloped, annoying, and 2D as the film portrays him. I never came to care about him unlike another infamous anti-hero character, Boromir, who truly seemed to redeem himself honorably (and successfully got me teary instead of rolling my eyes).
And don't even get me started with the Tauriel/Legolas/Kili love triangle. Dumb, unnecessary, and cheap. Again, bad soap opera. It was a mistake to ever create Tauriel's character. But hey, I guess films with no "romance" (although this hardly felt romantic) are hard to sell these days. In fact I feel Peter's direction with the dwarfs overall comes off campy and plain silly. Next to the elves, they come off goofy when I feel, if done right, they could've been made into an equally badass race. And remind me why again they're following Thorin? The rest of them just come off as silly, sheep-like cronies. While not as bad or annoying as Thorin, Thranduil comes off laughingly overdramatic and silly. I can't tell if it's the script or Lee Pace or both, but instead of coming off as the intimidating, powerful elf lord he is supposed to, I can't help but want to kick him off his damn moose (what?) and be like son please, get over yourself and take that stick out of your ass. At least Galadriel and Elrond made an appearance. Probably my favorite part of the film.
How this has a 7.7 is beyond me. Well, not really since I'm sure a big chunk of that is from a dedicated fan-base. I, for one however, am left being beyond disappointed even though I knew I would, and wishing these movies were never made to be honest. I guess if there's one good thing to this trilogy, it's that it makes me appreciate the caliber of the LOTR films even more. Now I'm questioning if Peter was a one (three?) trick pony somehow, and it makes me sad to think. I really hope he can prove himself as a director again with future films, but for now I've been left with a bad taste in my mouth from The Hobbit trilogy. I think I'll do myself a favor and pretend like these never existed.