The magic is gone

Rating: 4/10 (24 June 2015)

This is the third and final chapter of Peter Jackson's Hobbit trilogy. He directed the movie and also wrote the script. With the latter, he once again got help from his wife Fran Walsh, Guilermo del Toro and also Philippa Boyens with whom he worked together already on the "Lord of The Rings" movies. The film runs for under 2.5 hours and is thus the shortest of the three Hobbit films. While I at least mildly enjoyed the previous two installments, I have to say this one here really hasn't a whole lot of recommendable features anymore. This film came out shortly before Christmas last year, but it's not among the best holiday films of 2014.
It already started with a disappointment. The mighty dragon who really elevated the second movie with all the action in the treasure chamber was presented as a cliffhanger when he flew to the city to destroy it. And I was actually curious what would happen in the third film because of that ending from the second. I was really disappointed that the dragon was basically gone after roughly 20 minutes. I really wanted to see more of him. And also that it happened through a single shot from a bow was a bit ridiculous taking into account how huge and majestic the creature was. Oh and Stephen Fry was gone too at the same time which sucked as I really like him. Instead we get more of the ethnicity conflicts between Elves and Dwarfes basically for the entire film. I know people criticized that this was made as a trilogy and not as one single movie as Tolkien's original "Hobbit" was much shorter than his or d'oeuvre "The Lord of the Rings". If they make three satisfying films out of it, I will not agree with this popular criticism, but in my opinion they did not. Literally, I did not care at all what was going on the longer the movie went on.
Of course, you knew that Gandalf would not be dying for example even if it looked like that at times. He did appear in the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy after all, which plays a lot later. But that's not a problem at all. The ending I am not sure if I liked it, it's obviously handled in a way that the "Fellowship" could be watched right afterward. I guess the big LotR fans will like it. Anyway, all in all about this movie, it's nicely done in terms of technical aspects, sound and visuals. The visual effects are good (BAFTA nomination), the sound work brought them an Oscar nomination and the makeup and costumes, art direction and cinematography are also nicely done. It's hard to find a flaw with this framework. However, the core of this movie, the story was just not interesting enough to attract my attention for clearly over 2 hours. Also I have to say the female Elf love story references, the heroic Bard parts and Bilbo who became a hero against all odds all became a bit annoying as stuff like this was done in the past and there was really nothing that somehow made a difference here anymore. Even Azog I perceived as far less interesting in this one here. The only character I still found somewhat interesting was Alfrid. But that does not change my perception of the entire film in any way. Not recommended.