Extremely disappointed.

Rating: 5/10 (26 December 2013)

This is lengthy, and riddled with small spoilers, but there really is no major plot line to the movie or cliff hanger at the end, so it won't hurt for you to read the whole review before seeing the movie.. The love-triangle between the dwarf, Tauriel, and Legolas was completely unnecessary. It was cheesy, predictable, and poorly done. Bilbo's character in the book is one of wit and clever remarks; one who sneaks his way through sticky situations. We get a Brief glimpse of this Bilbo in the beginning of the scene with Smaug, but the Bilbo in the rest of the movie is a conqueror of dead bodies- someone who he is never portrayed as in the book. Granted, this inconsistency was sort-of justified when he mentions to Gandalf that he found his courage, and Gandalf replies "Good. You'll need it", but the drastic change of his character for the movie was unnecessary. Up until 3/4ths of the way into the movie, when we finally get to the hidden door, I kept finding myself thinking I was watching another Narnia or Pirates of the Caribbean movie, and at one point I thought I was watching Harry Potter. When they finally get to their destination, I felt I was watching a LOTR movie, as the playful and witty side of Bilbo finally reared it's head, and he made me chuckle like he did in the first movie. Smaug was phenomenally terrifying, and as I said, he made the ENTIRE movie. Due to that, though, I found myself wondering if the reason that the green-screens were so obvious, much of the acting so terrible, and the writing so cheesy and predictable was because Jackson spent his entire budget pimping out Smaug with every special effect under the sun, and on lovely, convincing costumes and hair extensions. These movies aren't supposed to be people-pleasing movies; with the oh so popular "love triangle" plot-line that has every teenage girl of this generation begging for more and choosing teams (we don't need any "Team Legolas!" t-shirts); or where there are completely unbelievable and ridiculously lengthy fight scenes for the guys who have to live vicariously through Legolas standing on two dwarfs heads, shooting arrows at Orcs, who have incredibly poor aim. These movies are supposed to be ones that make LOTR fans smile with recognition of a line from a book, and applaud at the end because of how accurately the movie portrayed the books they fell in love with. In the first Hobbit movie, the dwarfs are all very intimidating, regal, and (while a few of them make you laugh impressive characters. In this movie, they are cast in a very different light. They're made to be significantly shorter than everyone else, which I know is how they are supposed to be, but it's reflected much more often and more obviously in this movie than ever before, and it seems they are looked down on by everyone else. They are made to be greedy and selfish; something I think is incorrect. While Thorin may be struggling with those traits in his self-doubt and personal journey, the struggle he's going through is made very subtle and unimportant in the film, when in fact it's something of great importance. There are also obvious inconsistencies sprinkled through the movie. The dwarfs miraculously have weapons to fight off the hoard of Orcs attacking them while they're floating down waterfall after waterfall in barrels that would have sunk the first 5 seconds of their long journey down the river, and then the weapons seem to just disappear by the time they reach the shore. The Elves are always portrayed as complete bad asses until they accidentally forget to pay attention to their surroundings and a huge horde of Orcs sneaks up on them and kills like 30 of them.Gandalf makes his way up a treacherous staircase into a black hole of a place (I think they are tombs, but whose they are is something we don't get to know. We just know there's 9 of them), where he finds Radagast. I'm curious as to why, if Radagast is the one who found the Necromancer's hide-out in the first Hobbit movie, he seems to not know of the Necromancer's presence in THIS movie. There were also scenes that were OBVIOUSLY placed in the movie to show off lame special effects and waste time. A prime example would be the guy who changes into a bear. Why did we need to hear his whole 30-minute sob story? The one and only purpose he served was providing donkeys. And what was the point of the 20-minute scene with Thorin talking to the Elf king? Or the 10-minute scene showing the relationship between the creepy sidekick and the really ugly human king? There are also a plethora of loose ends. They spend half the movie building up this romance, but then when Tauriel makes the decision to save the dwarf and not help Legolas in the slaughter of the really ugly Orcs, there's no consequence. After SO many different, and very dramatic looks between people, nothing happens when she finally makes her decision. There is a super weird part where she glows and says some elvish stuff and they touch hands like awkward 8th graders. So you have that to look forward to. And might I add, that as a girl, I was really unimpressed with the eye candy for this movie. Clearly that's the only reason Bloom was included, and he looked really weird the whole time because of his face. The dwarf guy was probably supposed to be hot too, but he is always cross-eyed, so I had a hard time taking him seriously Another loose end is how Gandalf is being held captive, locked in a cage, hanging off a cliff. But we're supposed wait for the other movie to see him figure his way out.