I saw it opening weekend so my review has been a long time coming. But December is a busy month.
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
I defended PJ's decision to make it two movies, and I was afraid when he later decided to make it three. After watching An Unexpected Journey, I was satisfied. There were lots of changes to the book but I can deal with that. The movie was not without issues but on the whole it was very enjoyable. THIS movie, on the other hand, was crap. The barrel scene was awesome. That's all. I don't care they made the chief of the guard a woman (Even though the book actually DOES refer to the chief of the guard as male several times over despite what Peter Jackson's wife says). Good on them for adding in a strong female character. Its too bad the only reason they did that though was to treat her as an object for two men to fight over. Disgusting. It'd be less offensive if at least one of the sides of that love triangle wasn't one of the most forced romances in cinema. Then you have the fight with the spiders; a favourite part of mine in the book where Bilbo is revealed to be badass and the Dwarves really start to look to him for guidance. Instead its the Dwarves who do all the fighting, getting once again saved by the Elves in this case because Peter Jackson and co. Can't stop gushing over the elves for twelve seconds, and Bilbo is left to fend only for himself. Again, I don't mind changes to the book, but it has to make sense. It seems like while he's saved them once or twice in the movies, he hasn't yet REALLY proven his worth to them.
Then you have this fucking like 8 hour convoluted fight sequence between the dwarves and Smaug. It just never fucking ends.
The worst part is I'm still going to go see the third one because there is an army of dwarves in it and that should be badass. But knowing how PJ loves him some Elf, I'm guessing the battle of Five Armies will be presented as Elves vs goblins, with a dwarf here and there to make a joke about.