Very disappointing

Rating: Null/10 (17 January 2015)

It has some excellent moments and looks amazing but it's rather underwhelming overall and suffers from more structuring problems than the previous four films combined. It's very badly paced, I'm afraid. As with those four films, I watched the extended version but I wish that I hadn't as it feels incredibly bloated. It's very difficult to justify its three hour running time. My attention began to wane after about 1 hour and 45 minutes, something which never happened at all during the four hour version of "The Return of the King". While watching that film, I had to drag myself away from the screen to go to the bathroom. While watching this one (after the two hour mark), I often thought, "Is it not over yet?" Much of it feels like a "greatest hits" film. "Desolation" was a good word to put in the title but, sadly, not for the reason that they intended.
Even Smaug's first proper appearance is underwhelming and things don't get better from there. I wish that they had picked a good actor with the better voice instead of the irritating man of the moment Benedict Cumberbatch. In fairness to him though, he isn't anywhere near as hilariously awful as he was in another disappointing (though far, far worse) 2013 film, "Star Trek Into Darkness". Christopher Lee wanted to play Smaug and I wish that he had. Speaking of Lee, the film could have benefited from his appearance as well as from significantly more screen time for Ian McKellen and Sylvester McCoy.