Good looking and well acted mess

Rating: 5/10 (18 February 2015)

There are a number of aspects in any movie and all of those aspects have to be at a certain level in order to make a good film. One important component fails and the movie fails. In the Hobbit 3 the acting is professional and the visuals have been polished to sparkle but it is the poor lazy writing concealed beneath the flashy outside that fails.
Obviously the movie is not welcoming to new-comers. You have to have seen the previous Hobbit movies to understand this one (and frankly you have to see the Lord of the Rings movies in order to appreciate The Hobbit movies). People do not seem to mind and that is fine, but in that case I want one movie ticket for all of The Hobbit movies, please. If I paid to see a movie, I would like to walk out of The Hobbit 2 and go into The Hobbit 3 with the same ticket because it is the same movie.
Not only is the Hobbit 3 simply a foundationless continuation of the last movie, but it feels like the ending to the Hobbit 2 that has been cut off and stretched out into a full film because rich directors need to eat too, I suppose.
The plot revolves around the dwarfs being hauled up in their recaptured mountain fortress full of riches as several parties of Middle Earth converge on the mountain, while the dwarf king has to deal with an onset of madness. However, do not take the word "plot" to heart because there isn't really a plot here. There isn't an original solid story that can stand on its own.
The main premise is that the king becomes greedy as he desperately seeks the jewel Arkenstone and wants to protect his gold. If it sounds familiar it is because it is the same bloody premise as in the Lord of the Rings! A desirable macguffin "insert item name here" that corrupts you. Why did the story need to be recycled?
The script feels bloated. A fight happens, and another two fights are happening at the same time. They keep on happening and happening, and the fight will seemingly come to a conclusion, but no, it changes gear and we are back in the same fight again but from a different angle. As was the case with the Lord of the Rings, the movie refuses to end on moments that feel more than appropriate to end on, except unlike Lord of the Rings the movie is not nearly good enough to outstay its welcome like that.
The eagles! Let us talk about those friggin eagles. When the giant eagles first appeared in Lord of the Rings helping a hero out of a corner, like the very definition of "deus ex machina", it could have been forgiven or perhaps even explained, but after the mistake was pointed out and made fun of by the public Jackson continued to put those eagles into the story. He is insulting the viewer's intelligence and the viewer is letting him.
But I am glad the eagles were added to this movie because it gives a perfect example of what is wrong with the story of this film: stuff just happens. It does not feel like there is one single thread of events connected by reason but rather several loosely connected cgi scenes.
There is no logic for the mind to grasp because you know that in this cgi-fest physics need not apply and anything could happen for no particular reason because the makers can write anything and animate anything to fill out the movie, and so they do.
Imagine if instead of a song that has a specific mood, an intro, a chorus, verses and an outro what you got was a solo played by a robot consisting of just running up and down the scale really fast, then a few random chords from the scale, then another solo and everything is played dramatically. Yes, it may all be in the same key, but it is still sh*t.
Plot lines are left open. Something happens to one of the main characters that completely changes his behavior from then on and it is never explained. It just happened, deal with it. The above-mentioned Arkenstone gets completely forgotten towards the 2nd half of the film, and in fact, so does the whole mountain that all the fighting was about.
Every character is so cookie-cutter simple. The dialogue in this movie is not all bad but it certainly can take deep dives. People keep narrating what we can see perfectly well by ourselves. If you actually think about what is being said, much of it is drama for drama's sake, empty but epic-sounding over-the-top dialogue sold to the viewer by professional tradesmen that are these actors.
The thing that angers me the most is that people eat this movie right up. Mr. Jackson and his team woos the viewers with an expensive magical exterior and earns gazillions of dollars.
Maybe it is just that all of the weaknesses of all The Lord of the Rings movies are suddenly reaching me at once. If you enjoy this film, great. In fact, I suspect that boys will like it since it has a lot of action, simple characters and simple events. It is definitely advisable to watch right after the first two films so that its lack of independence is not as jarring.
Empty dialogue, ridiculous plot points, abandoned plot points, plot holes and in fact a giant hole where the plot should be. If you respect movies, do not watch this one because it does not respect you back. The Hobbit 3 is a very well shot and well-acted BAD movie.