Just wait for the DVD

Rating: 3/10 (30 December 2013)

I was disappointed.
The story picks up with... wait, how did the last one end? It was so long ago. And then they go to Lonely Mountain. Something about the dwarfs, apparently. There's some trouble on the way, but Bilbo bails them out. More trouble, more Bilbo saving the day. More trouble... you get the idea. Predictable should have this movie next to the entry in the dictionary.
Special effects were sometimes really good (the light vs. dark battle), and sometimes head-shakingly poor. The barrel ride down the river was cartoonish and completely unbelievable - apparently barrels can go completely underwater and come up without any water in them. I was literally shaking my head watching that scene, it was so bad.
I lost count of how many Orcs an Elf can kill in one second without getting a scratch, or slowing down the Orcs. I also got tired of the 'slay the orcs' choreography. It was a grind - like playing a poorly designed flash game.
And then there's the story. I like a movie that has a story line, preferably involving characters that we get to know a bit along the way. This was more like a string of special effects shot, with a plot line - no plot, just a line. I like Tolkein because of the story. He was a story teller. This movie did not tell a story. Things happened in a sequence, but nothing really developed along the way.
I wanted to like this movie as much as the first. I tried to like it. But my advice for this one: wait until it comes out in the 3-part DVD set.