Dreary and way too long

Rating: 2/10 (3 January 2015)

After a decent effort in the first two films, this was an overly long orgy of tedious fighting. I couldn't wait for it to be over.
As usual CGI was spot on-on and there was loads of beautiful countryside. The dwarfs didn't have much of a look-in this time which was a shame as they were entertaining characters, there was a continuation of the dwarf/elf love-in with Tauriel, Orc upon ugly Orc and plenty of flying heads. I didn't feel any of the emotion and bond there was supposed to be between Bilbo and the dwarfs at all. Overall I felt it contained little of the magic of the wonderful book and had too much of a LoTR feel about it.
In the end, it reminded me of the first LoTR film in that it was a little like eating too much of a rich fruit cake: made you wish you'd not had anywhere near as much.