Too gloomy but makes more sense as a part of the story of the Ring

Rating: 7/10 (14 December 2013)

Just watched the second ‪#‎hobbit‬. It was not great, I could even say that it was mediocre, but my view of it might differ from yours.
The real reason for its mediocrity is the fact that the whole tone of the movie has been changed greatly from the book. The original work by J.R.R. Tolkien was set as an advanced fairy tale with its ups and downs, but without extreme gloom. Every part of it had a sense of a separate story with beginning, struggle and happy end, each chapter could be easily delivered to a child before sleep.
The movie is set very differently. Firstly there is a persistent chase, second is the fact that we now have a constant and singular main enemy augmented by various other perils. There are no happy moments, only slight comic and romance reliefs. Elves are gloomy, the Lake-town is set as hungry and oppressed medieval society, even the Beorn is set more as a loner werewolf , rather than a magical and 100% in-control human with very strict morals and interesting personality.
This change in tone is what I don't like in the movie. But once I separate these aspects the movie starts making much more sense as a part of the story of the Ring. Firstly Hobbit completely omits the move from physical to supernatural world when the Ring is used. Secondly the LOTR movies dropped a whole lot of detail to be able to accommodate the huge plot and added teenage romance. Much of the dialogue involving the events leading to LOTR is missing from the movie. Now it has found its way into the Hobbit. I bet that if a person watches all 6 Hobbit/LOTR movies in the future prior to reading the book, they will find it logical in the sense of a single coherent story. Take, for example, Legolas, he is a 100% addition in the Hobbit, but when you combine the information with LOTR you realize that Bilbo and the dwarfs were imprisoned in his home as he is a wood's elf.
The whole story of rebirth of Sauron and the evil is mentioned in the LOTR and supposedly happens between the Hobbit and LOTR, but here the script fills in these blanks.
So all in all, I like the Hobbit/LOTR, but just don't like the added gloom of the first half.