No? Oh good.

It was rubbish.

I'm the most vociferous defender of these films. They're brilliant, all of them. I love all Lord of the Rings, except for the slowness in the 2nd one. I loved the first Hobbit, didn't agree with the complaints at all really (apart from how tired the birds thing gets).

These films rely on peril unless the story is riveting. The story of this is - the dwarves are going to the mountain. That's it. And the peril is non-existent. At no point do you think "someone might die here" or "I'm quite worried now I don't know if all the dwarves will get through this". I did in the first one, when the goblins had them and when they got chased at the end.

**potential spoilers**

One major flaw: the dragon talks. I know he talks in the book, but so does the spider in Return of the King and the goblins in the first LOTR book in the mines. Pretty sure you can't shut the ringwraiths up in the books, but them just silently stalking around makes for a far, far scarier film.

In the Fellowship, the look on Pippin's face when they first see the balrog is pure terror, and it's believable. They all shit themselves. In this one, Bilbo's having a jovial chat with the dragon about how witty it is. It's not scary, it's just silly and drab.

The plot with Gandalf is great. I want to see that. I do not give a toss what happens to Stephen Fry's town and the dwarves cos they got so boring in this film.

Highlight - Gandalf running around the castle being chased by those orcs and Sauron
Lowlight - the elf woman making a joke about the dwarf not having a knob

3/10