What a chore.

Rating: 5/10 (24 December 2014)

In my opinion, The Two Towers was the best film of The Lord of the Rings trilogy. It hit a very sweet spot and said some very interesting things about storytelling in the nature of setup and payoff. The Hobbit's The Desolation of Smaug isn't in the same league as The Lord of the Rings, needless to say, and it doesn't even live up to the mild entertainment of An Unexpected Journey. It has no payoffs to offer. This is an utter chore to get through. I don't care enough to go into detail, I'm not invested in any facet of this instalment of Middle Earth. I get that Jackson kind of wants this whimsical shimmering aesthetic but holy moly it couldn't be messier. It's cool to watch the elves wreck things up, but it's littered with so much video game physics that the immersion is gone, if it was ever there in the first place. While some moments are alright, Martin Freeman makes the best of it when he has any focus, it just feels like a soulless money grab.
5/10