Bloated, asinine, risible, ridiculous nonsense.

Rating: 3/10 (3 July 2015)

This film has such gorgeous spectacle that you want it to continue even after its two-hour length. It is a delight to the eye, with gorgeous scenery and costumes and wonderful set design.
In every other way it is a boated, silly, pretentious mess. It has no script to speak of. Character consistency and development are absent. What slight story there is makes no sense. Much of the acting is not terribly good. A lot of the CGI is not terribly good either. The forces of physics and gravity do not exist. The humour fails completely. After a devastating battle which has killed a quarter of his people, a leader takes the sick and shocked survivors away from what resources still remain for a week-long journey through a desolate wilderness, which would surely have killed the rest. This is after he has shot from a bow a ridiculous iron bolt which wouldn't even travel well from a ballista. Then he immediately puts his trust in a man who is patently dishonest, self-serving and cowardly. After inviting his kin Dain, who behaves like a football hooligan not a king, from the Iron Hills, putting the lives of he and his people at risk for Thorin, this great dwarf leader skulks in his basement. Despite Gimli's love for Galadriel in LOTR being the only time a dwarf has ever loved an elf, here it happens first. Thranduil is motivated by desire for a necklace. The three owners of the Elven-rings, who have tried for a thousand years to conceal these from Sauron, show up on his doorstep wearing them. This gives us an opportunity to see a ninety-year old man whirling and jumping around like a thing possessed, evidently because Jackson believes that you can't be worthwhile unless you can kick arse. As everywhere in the whole two trilogies, Jackson shows no comprehension of the times, of the morals, of the motivations. And this is only to mention the most obvious and foolish faults. Everything is conceived of in terms that would embarrass the writers of Days Of Our Lives. Important elements of the book - and elements that would have greatly improved the movie, such as the entry of Beorn into the battle - are thrown out or thrown away. As usual Jackson,a man who conveys neither humility nor respect for his source material, somehow conceives that he is a better writer than Tolkein - as well as a director who conveys total contempt for the intelligence of his audience. Certainly the character thread of losing all values to the lust for money makes complete sense here.
Trash, and a candidate for worst blockbuster ever. Cats & Dogs 2: The Revenge Of Kitty Galore was a better film. Perhaps one day someone with sense may something with at least some reference to Tolkein or, at least, less embarrassing.