A worthy farewell to Middle Earth...

Rating: 9/10 (17 December 2014)

I think the Hobbit BOFA was easily the best of the three, and captures the vibe of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. This movie was the most ambitious of the 3 because it also has to be the bridge between the Hobbit and LOTR and in my opinion it did exactly that.
First of all the hobbit book was a beautiful child story but a child story nonetheless and without adding all the stuff that Peter did i think a decent movie could not be made. I mean in the book we only know the name of the dwarfs and not a single thing about their character(except thorin) to actually care for them, and that's where i think this movie shines, We know Balin is the wisest, Dwalin the best warrior, Fili left the company for his brother, Kili likes eleven maids, we saw that in Rivindell and in Mirkwood he fell in love with Tauriel which makes his death even more dramatic.
There were many awesome-goosebumps scenes, only to mention a few. Bard used his son as a crossbow (i mean how cool is that), reminding him that had he failed to hit the target, would result in his children's death. Elves passing over the dwarven phalanxes, that awesome troll that used a huge stone in his head to break down the walls, The dwarfs charging out of Erebor, Legolas being Legolas and most notably Fili, Kili and Thorin's death.
I think Peter displays his qualities as a director managing to always keep you at the edge of your seat, the beautiful battle choreography, (catapult trolls!!) but also manages to make the battle feel very intimate. There was in some cases too much CGI but it made orcs look more threatening than ever especially bolg's body guards, in Lotr they were too slow. Howard Shore does his job brilliantly with a soundtrack that deserves an academy award also the acting was as solid as ever especially Evans,Freeman, Armitage and also Graham McTavish as Dwalin.
Although the film left so many unresolved things like Dain's coronation (which will be in the extended edition, the soundtrack is proof of that), they couldn't have found a better ending than gandalf knocking in bag end's door at bilbo 111 birthday, it was very emotional.
In my opinion this movie and the whole trilogy is better than the book and no other director would do it nowhere near as good as Peter did. It's a worthy farewell to Middle Earth!