The Hobbit

I love Lord of the Rings but these three movies just never reached that level for me. The biggest problem is that The Hobbit simply did not need to be three movies. You’ve got a roughly 300 page book being stretched into a trilogy with The Battle of the Five Armies taking what is basically a few pages of the story and turning it into a 3 hour movie. That doesn't mean there aren't things I like. Martin Freeman is brilliant as Bilbo. I can't fault the performances across any of the three movies. Everyone is doing a fantastic job it just feels like they're trapped inside a story that has been padded out beyond what it needs to be.

The first movie probably comes closest to getting the balance right. Bilbo leaving his Hobbit life, Gandalf turning up with thirteen dwarves invading his house and eating everything in sight is great. Then you've got the trolls which're easily one of the most entertaining parts of the trilogy.

Then there's Smaug. When the trilogy gets going and we finally get to the Lonely Mountain there's some amazing moments. Smaug looks insanely good. The whole sequence of trying to outsmart him is brilliant. That ending to The Desolation of Smaug with him declaring that he's fire and death before heading towards Laketown is still an epic way to finish a movie.

Unfortunately, The Battle of the Five Armies is where everything starts falling for me. Also shoehorning Legolas into this trilogy really irked me. I love Legolas in The Lord of the Rings. The shield surfing scene in The Two Towers is ridiculous but it’s the good kind of ridiculous. The stuff he does in The Hobbit crosses the line into cartoon territory. That bit where he runs across falling pieces of a collapsing bridge had me wondering whether gravity had simply stopped working.

Azog is another problem. Manu Bennett is great. I was genuinely excited to see him in the role, but I don't think the character adds enough to justify how much of the trilogy is built around him. He could have been a villain. Ultimately feels like another piece of padding.

Then there's the CGI. Some of it looks fantastic, some of it really hasn't aged well. The CGI orcs don't have the presence and some of the effects around the Lonely Mountain look incredibly artificial. Even the giant molten gold dragon sequence feels like a computer game cutscene than Middle-earth.

Despite all of that I don't hate The Hobbit. There are some moments buried inside these three movies. Bilbo is fantastic. Thorin’s story has some good emotional moments towards the end and the final conversation between Thorin and Bilbo works well. It's also more child friendly than The Lord of the Rings which is probably part of its appeal. I can see why someone would prefer The Hobbit movies even if I personally wouldn't choose them over The Lord of the Rings.

Ultimately that's my problem with The Hobbit trilogy: there's a two film adventure buried inside three movies. It's fun, it's entertaining, it’s got dragons, dwarves, wizards and enough Middle Earth nostalgia to keep me watching. It constantly feels like it wants to be The Lord of the Rings when it should have just concentrated on being The Hobbit. Honestly, after watching all three I was just ready to go to the proper trilogy.