I finally got around to watching the last Hobbit movie. Not as bad as I feared. The CGI was toned down, during the battle scenes especially. Legolas running along on the falling bricks was positively madness but it was a quick, one time ting so I can handle it. Much of the ridiculousness was left to the steward guy, whatever his name is. Thorin was the star of the movie, his obsession with his new riches I found believable.
Still most of the faults of the Hobbit triology show up. The battle scene went on and on without ever giving me any real sense that our heroes were in peril. The way Peter Jackson explained how The Battle of the Five Armies came about I thought was muddled and didn't make complete sense. There was also a half-hearted attempt to bring some strategic aspects into the battle, which for me was not needed and fell flat.
Martin Freeman has been a strong Bilbo throughout, but he was hardly used at all this movie. Compare this to the book that is almost entirely about Bilbo, and the most memorable parts are where he struggles between wanting to return home and his newfound lust for adventure. I feel the movie series have more and more turned Bilbo into a sword-slinging action hero. Instead Bard gets a lot of attention, and he is completely milktoast, probably one of the least interesting characters in the history of cinema. He shares this feature with the main (and only) villain, the orc, another dullard.
I'd say it was better than the second one, worse than the first. Alltogether a disappointing run of movies for me from Peter Jackson. It should have been one movie, it became three. One movie where Bilbo got knocked out and sleeps through the battle, just like in the books. Giving Martin Freeman some real space to act. That would have been good, could have been brilliant.
It's not all bad, the ending was nice and it got me in the mood to watch the original triology again. There is a magic in those movies that's hard to explain.
Oh, I give it five years before Silmarillion is turned into a three part feature movie.
