Decent, not great, but at least not Star Wars: Ep. 1-3

Rating: 7/10 (25 May 2015)

I just saw this film after waiting for RedBox to carry it. It's not bad. There's definitely some good scenes in it, but then is followed by vapid confrontation scenes, or vapid love triangle/reconciliation scenes.
The fight with the dragon was cool; The Battle of the 5 Armies a bit lackluster. Thorin dying with Bilbo by his side was great; Tauriel upset that one human-looking dwarf dies was dumb. There were many ups then downs in the story like these.
I recommend it if you like a good fantasy/adventure movie. Expect some really stupid things, but expect surprisingly strong scenes as well.
I believe Martin Freeman really knocks it out of the park with his performance in this movie more than the others, as he's given a wider range of emoting to play with in the script, and does so very well. The scenes with Thorin a were especially strong.
And at the end of it, you get a song from Billy Boyd (Pippin of LotR), who is, to my surprise, a very good singer.
It doesn't have the cathartic resolution that LotR had at the end, and falls a bit flat trying to emulate the previous success, but it's still a decent movie. I recommend if you like the genre, or are a young film student to see a good movie with bad holes in it looks like.