There...and back again

Rating: Null/10 (13 December 2014)

Well...it's finally over, though it did not show the embodiment of Sauron pre-Mordor. 3 more movies await us, I suppose, and it's all so tiring.
However, the action, and the CGI, along with the 3D augmented cinematography, is consistently spectacular, though not as real- seeming as the first LOTR movies were, and I love my action movies gritty and earthy, not as squeaky-clean as Jackson makes Middle Earth look.
The LOTR movies are much better than this Hobbit series and its still sad to note all the padding that has gone into this that went into extending the planned 2-movie series into the 3 that finally turned out, but in spite of that, these are deffo better than the Harry Potter works, and I bring that up since they eschewed most of the aspects that were in the books to bring us edited-yet-bloated works, in spite of their quality improving with the 3rd work.
Another thing that struck me was that the stupid cliffhanger-ending in the 3nd one was completely unwarranted, esp. since this one continues right after, and the climax for that could have been the prelude that this one made it as. Everything on that aspect screams 'cash-grab' loud-and-clear, and I almost wish I had denied Peter Jackson and WB/New Line the moolah they'd planned for, but they'd have gotten it anyway.
Another grouse of mine on this series: the sword-and-sorcery aspect of this entire series, including the LOTR ones, though those did it better, is muted, and this is due to the PG-13 rating that they have to work with. Now, I haven't seen the extended editions of the LOTR movies, and my friends promised me that they had 'fixed' the rating aspect on those, but no one got to watch that on the 'actual' big- screen now, did they? Nope. So, though this one has exactly 3 set- pieces that are beautifully choreographed and wonderfully shot, the 'muted' aspect takes the impact, and dare I say, the fun, out of the proceedings completely. Something that did not saddle a movie like 'Gladiator' or 'Centurion', and those movies were the better for that.
A hard-R rating would've been the way to go on this one, and no amount of footage on the extended edition/s is gonna fix that for the big screen.
Something else that bothered me this time: Gandalf's sorcery - nada. Zilch. Not a single instance of the great wizard's sorcery is on (dis)play here, despite the so-called stakes that the 4 armies (yeah, 2 Orc armies - Azog and Bolg from Gundabad - really, 'Gunda'bad, lake-town humans - not very substantial but there nevertheless, 2 dwarf armies - merge the fellowship/company with the actual ones that Thorin's cousin brings along, and the mighty Elves: math deffo ain't a strong suit with Jackson, but he's laughing all the way to the bank, and you can bet he can count those pennies). Strange, considering they had that aspect covered with Cate Blanchett, Chris Lee and Hugo Weaving being conveniently on hand to spring Gandalf out of Sauron's clutches.
Yeah, so no Sauron, no Gandalf sorcery, no R-action, and bloated run-times. I'd probably recommend not watching this one or the ones that came before, but you're gonna do so anyway, and honestly, it has its moments, like the ones before did (curiously though, I remember 'Smaug', but am unable to recollect a single scene of the first one - probably a statement on the stretching they had to do to make the 2 movies into 3).