Peter Jackson's Hobbit trilogy, prequel to his Lord of the Rings movies, ends with this film. Thank you Mr. Jackson for bringing my favorite J.R.R. Tolkien books to life!
It deserved more than a mere Oscar nomination, but that's why I am the Critic of the People, so the masses be heard. Peter was shy of a masterpiece. Bilbo the Hobbit (Martin Freeman) ends his journey at Erebor's Lonely Mountain. The dragon Smaug should've been killed in the previous movie which makes this movie drag on. Once the dragon is dead, 5 armies converge on Smaug's horde of treasure being defended by Thorin's (Richard Armitage) company of dwarfs inside the Lonely Mountain. Jackson over embellished! There's worms straight out of Frank Herbert's Dune, and the inconclusive, silly romance between an elf and a dwarf continued logging on minutes. Some parts were repetitive from the Lord of the Rings film trilogy enemy marches, like orcs emerging from Gundabad with redundant scripts. No wonder Thorin's band goes out to battle armorless; filmstrip's running short. Bilbo lies to Gandalf (Ian McKellen) that he lost the ring of power, despite showing it to Gandalf in Jackson's the Fellowship of the Ring.
Nonetheless, only Jackson goes to Middle Earth. He synthesized Tolkienesque CGI creatures and settings together. Some history on Sauron, the Lord of the Rings, is a bonus that Tolkien left us wanting to know more about, and Jackson expands on. There are plenty of dramatic skirmishes supplementing this battle of 5 armies that equals or tops the final battle in The Return of the King.
I haven't given a movie a FIELD GOAL in a while. Well, I give it to this flick due to how close it came to greatness. That's Peter Jackson for you though. Adding Del Toro as cowriter was a good try, but he needed more fresh minds. More likely his management style was on automatic after making 6 of these Tolkien movies.
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