Pure excitement in a neat, dwarf-sized powder keg.

Rating: 8/10 (19 December 2014)

Note: To keep eye-strain to a minimum, I will be referring to the three Hobbit movies as H1, H2 and H3, respectively. Thank you. Having felt let-down by the bloated feel of H1, and then surprised by the monumental improvement in the performances and story choices made in H2, I sat down for H3 with tempered expectations keeping me from floating from my seat. And that turned out to be for the best. Because through my lenses of noncommittal gray, Middle Earth became the color of awesome. The visuals were stunning of course, and *most of the time*, believable (but more on that later), and the battle-scenes, the one-on-one variety in particular, were easily the most spectacular of the series. Would that I had had more jaws to drop. And this was H3's strongest point. The fighting raged on almost non-stop, and yet it was so well choreographed, inspired and varied, that I never felt fatigued as I had during H1 (how many damn goblins can there BE under that mountain? Really!). I'll leave my only gripe on this matter in the form of a question: How many good guys can be saved JUST as a raised weapon is about to splatter their head? You very well may find out. The story was compelling. Enough. When the fate of the entire world is not at stake, as it was in the LOTR films, the gravitas is naturally lessened from that level. However, though our heroes' plight is more localized here, the urgency is always apparent and well-conveyed. And though there is no shortage of wide shots, the directors were not afraid to pull in close to let the actors shine when they needed to. There was a certain character introduced who was entirely CGI, which I did not understand the reason for, but trying to cope with that plastic face was the only situation where I was too "taken out of it" to appreciate a performance (for some reason, monster races = acceptable-looking plastic. Don't ask me why). Performance-wise, some actors finally seemed comfortable in their own feet (Martin Freeman), some more seasoned ones finally got to kick some much deserving arse (I'll leave the whom to your imagination), and some showed a much wider range of emotions from what had been demanded of them in previous installments (Lee Pace and Aidan Turner). If you're expecting the same feeling of wonder and amazement that The LOTR films brought to your hopelessly geeky heart, forsooth, it is not to be found here. H2 came closest in that regard. No, this is instead a story pieced together by one and a half chapters of actual book, and a whole lot of notes that would be boring in the retelling if not slathered in a sweet sweet sauce of orc blood, dwarf curses and a whole lot of elf swagger, which it was. Thank Sauron, it was.