Jackson is warming up in part II

Rating: 6/10 (21 December 2013)

In my review of part I, I noted that "there is a great film within this film." This is still true for part II, but the great film is closer to the surface here. Less cutting is needed.
If one accepts the film on its own terms (and viewers generally do, no matter how great the book it is based on), there are many pluses: the story moves further in less screen time; more attention is paid to some of the characters; it presents a grander view of the events surrounding Sauron's re-emergence than Tolkien's marvelous book.
In that regard, there are many worthwhile additions, such as Gandalf's investigation of Dol Guldur, or bringing out elves as characters (they are entirely nondescript in the book until the very end). In a wise scripting decision, Bilbo understands the language of the Mirkwood spiders only when he puts on the Ring. All this makes the film a better fit with the LOTR trilogy.
There are also many bad decisions: 1) Diminishing Bilbo's character by not having him perform the heroic rescues as in the book. The whole idea of The Hobbit (and LotR) is that the common soldier, who does not even show up as a footprint in history, IS in reality the history. 2) The silly romance between elf Tauriel and dwarf Kili culminates in an incredibly sappy healing scene, where Evangeline Lilly is forced to stare vacantly while glowing, a real cringe-moment. This worked with Arwen and Aragorn, but Tauriel, you are no Arwen, and Kili, you are no Aragorn. Fortunately, it could be fixed by cutting 5 minutes from the "Director's special shortened edition" while enhancing the Tauriel character, who together with Legolas and Thranduil puts some meat on the elves. 3) The whole liquid gold thing should have been cut when Jackson saw what the CGI looked like. 4) As in the previous installment, some action is so unnecessary, and so implausible physically, that it ruins the moment; like someone dashing across a river on the heads of randomly floating people; or someone floating in a metal bucket on molten metal without getting baked to a crisp. And so forth. 5) Most annoyingly, the screenwriters again weaken Tolkien's brilliant characters for the sake of creating short-lived dramatic tension. LOTR was guilty many times over, for instance when King Theoden is a wimp who hides in a burg waiting for disaster, instead of the decisive leader who recognizes quickly that Gondor must be helped; or the indecisiveness of the Ents to give Merry something to do, even though in the book they are slow, but not indecisive. And let's not even start with Frodo. Here Bard is turned into a smuggler for hire; Thranduil tries to cut a bargain with Thorin; elves SNORE (sacrilege!); the wizard wavers, instead of following his plans 100s of years in the making. And I already mentioned Bilbo as point number 1)..
Yet the scenery is brilliantly imagined as always, the acting ranges from solid to very good, the story moves along nicely, so the nearly 3 hours pass quickly, and from a bird's eye perspective, no major deviations from the book are made, not worse than in the LOTR movies at any rate. The worst is a should-be-dead Azog bossing his should-be-son Bolg around. And of course that awful liquid gold.
One gets the feeling that Jackson is at his most brilliant when he has little budget and time (Heavenly Creatures, Dead Alive), or is not yet recognized by Hollywood (LOTR), but overdoes it when given too much money (King Kong or here). Still, Jackson overdoing it is better than most fantasy film making. But alas, what could have been!