And that was the most powerful scene throughout the whole movie. The only one, actually. At least it was to me. Literally nothing else in the movie achieves the emotional effects it intended to make, not even the grand battle scenes.
This article contains spoilers. Read at your own risk.
To understand the existence of the third installment in The Hobbit series, you have to know that it is an expansion of a children book of 300 pages, and Peter Jackson squeezed in so much details and additional storylines he made three movies out of it. But understanding it doesn't mean you're accepting it as a flaw. I personally find it to be excessively unnecessary to be splitting the book into three films, but trilogy does indeed sound so much prestigious than Part I and Part II (ahem, Mockhingjay) so that's that.
The movie starts where we were left off from one movie ago: The dragon Smaug is flying towards to village of Lake-town. For all the suspense (or excitement, depending on which side of evilness you stand) it built over the course of the year, the sequence ends awfully fast at approximately 10 minutes into the movie. For those who are so eagerly waiting for this CGI sequence, it can be a bummer to see Smaug going down so soon. But not before a corny father-son bonding session over the tense dragon-fighting chaos.
Most of what happen next take place around the Lonely Mountain, where the likes of Dwarves and Elves and Human fight for the possessions and gold in the mountain, before banding together to fight off the Orcs and... well, whatever monsters Peter Jackson can come up with to represent the dark armies.
That pretty much sums up the whole movie. That's right, from fighting the dragon to fighting the Orcs. You will understand why this third movie clocked in at merely 144 minutes (comparatively shorter than the previous two entries) because Peter Jackson had simply run out of additional materials to prolong the franchise. I took very personally in this movie length issue, but that has more to do with my OCD and epic-obsessiveness than anything else.
Anyhow, the movie as a whole feels not significant. Not much I can remember three days after watching it. No more fresh angle and colorful "wow-ness" like the first time we encountered the 13 dwarves or the goblin's lair. No more mesmerizing action sequences like the one escaping from the dungeon of the wood-elves in rolling wine cellars. Instead, there are only endless scenes of Thorin looking suspiciously to everyone and think everyone betrays him. The story is running thin, and the visual is running out of creativity. The score feels repeated, and in some cases, they actually re-use scores from LOTR film series.
The performances, you asked? Well, after three movies (and six, in the case of Gandalf and Legolas), there really aren't any more surprises the cast can give us. As charming as Martin Freeman can be, he takes the back seat this time, supporting Thorin in most of the scenes (that's right, the hobbit is actually a supporting character in a movie called The Hobbit). Sherlock's fans don't actually get to see him on screen with Benedict Cumberbatch, because both characters that Benedict Cumberbatch voices don't require him on screen. Evangeline Lilly spends most of the time with Orlando Bloom but their chemistry is basically zero. And the 13 dwarves... well, save for Thorin (and in a way, the young and handsome Kili, which was cast that way for romantic purposes, so there's bound to be storyline for him) we don't get to see the rest of them a lot, let alone enough screen time to highlight their personality. What is the fat cute dwarf's name again?
I'm glad the film series comes to an end. Peter Jackson needs to walk out of this huge Tolkien shadow quick. There might not be another Heavenly Creatures inside of him, but the longer he stays in the Middle-Earth, the lazier he becomes. True, we need more fantasy movies (I'm a sucker for anything magical and colorful) but I'm ready to walk out of Middle-Earth now. Are you?
Rating: C
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