[Quiet Man Cometh]

My, comparatively brief and less ranty, opinion of said film.

Yes, spoilers.

*earnestly prays that Thranduil was not alluding to a Silmaril in Smaug's horde.* I haven't even read The Silmarillion and I still don't want to see it treated like The Hobbit was, not that I've read that either.

First of all, I thought the film just looked plain weird, and it took me half the movie to get used to it. It felt unnatural and reminded me of old episodes of Red Dwarf that I've seen. I suppose it's the 3D.

The movie would have been a heck of a lot shorter and more interesting if we took out the stuff we've already seen before in LOTR. Look! It's the Lothlorien scene, again. Gandalf is getting thrown around and mashed into stuff, again. Legolas is doing bow tricks...the same bow tricks (except for the arrow through two orc heads. That was pretty cool). Legolas is surfing something again.

You know what? Just take Legolas out of the film. Tauriel is just fine on her own. Though, I did find it amusing when he looked a little dizzy after the fight with Bolg.

Couple of questions:

Hey Radagast! Meet me at this tomb for some reason!

Why? (Seriously. Radagast asked the question, but none of us are sure if Gandalf actually answered it.)

Ooo, pretty horses, which no one is in the scene to actually see.

Why? (yes yes, I know they are there to be convenient transport, but what's with the dreamy horse scene? Reminds me of the unicorn in the Blade Runner director's cut. I believe they were Gypsy Vanners, very pretty to look at, and I suppose the producers wanted their money's worth out of whatever they paid for them.)

Oh no! We can't cross the lake in front of us that the river led into...the river that we floated down in these barrels...barrels that we just climbed out of and left on shore in order to lament that we can't cross this lake. Would that we had some manner of device that can hold a dwarf and that floats! Damn!

Okay, so maybe I am ranting here, too.

Thranduil was pretty cool when he didn't look like he was having spasms of some kind. I, too, was a little thrown by the melty-skin trick. I did like his little chat with Tauriel. I did like Beorn too, as long as we ignore the stuff that Suze already pointed out. He's a big mean-ass bear. Neat! :).

Smaug was cool. Gilded Smaug was damn cool too. That was all I was hoping for. I left the theater mollified.

To summarize:

Best part of the movie = Smaug
Second best part of the movie = the preview for Godzilla