Disappointment Doesn't Even Begin To Cover It

Rating: 1/10 (21 December 2013)

If you were thinking about seeing The Desolation of Smaug, do yourself a favor and stay home. It's close to 3 hours of your life you will never get back. The plot has almost nothing to do with the book. There are completely fabricated characters and there is NO character development. In fact, I had to go stand in the hall for a minute because my brother & I were laughing so hard about the fact that the third movie could be 3 hours of the cast members literally destroying copies of The Hobbit and it would probably be a better movie than this. The last 30 minutes are completely made up, insulting to Tolkein, and painful to watch. I would actually pay more than I paid to see the movie to get those 3 hours of my life back. I am at a loss for words at how Peter Jackson did so well with the Lord of The Rings movies and then seemingly had a seizure while holding a pen and decided to call it a script and go with it. I think they thought that bringing back Legolas would help the movie, but in fact they only detracted by going ahead & writing him as a bland character who is now, instead of being primarily an archer, a ninja swordsman of some sort. They also opt to attempt to squeeze in a love story instead of actual events that happened in the book, because dull romance sells. If you love the book as much as I do and have any sort of positive expectations for this film, you will be severely let down.