Reviews

First of all: though I am not a great expert of incredible Tolkien's world (something I read, something I didn't), I do respect his works and do not find the idea of changing the canon on a whim by the filmmakers rather appealing.

General impression of the entire movie-trilogy: it is a muddle. Trying to feed the story to the audience such as I belong to (non-experts of Tolkien) by making it more obvious - they just made everything worse. The result is sometimes incoherent, sometimes illogical and sometimes ridiculous and unconvincing.

Althoug there are undeniable "bright spots", to be sure:

1) Nice picture and costumes and environment and all. Impressive.

2) Martin Freeman as Bilbo Baggins - is brilliant. There could be more of him, but - sadly - there wasn't. He often was overshadowed by "epic muddling" of the others.

3) Richard Armitage as Thorin Oakenshield - he fits perfectly, end of story:) He did a great job. Talented actor he is, constantly delivering us the play of the highest quality. Though the story is not about him originally but about Bilbo - and in the movie they made it as if it was all about Thorin.

4) Lee Pace as Thranduil the Elven King - well, this one is the Jewel! The pure diamond in this muddle. He is fabulous, he is absolutely brilliant. Thranduil stole the show. Notwithstanding all his grandeur and pathos there is a certain humorous element about him at some moments. He is heading his elven army riding the giant elk with enormous antlers, no less! :))) His glossy arrogant, menacingly cool, haughtily pathos,malevolent, narcissistically glamorous character just made this movie for me and made me sitting and watching and laughing whilst I was growing fed up with all the mess and was tempted to abandon it.

5) Benedict Cumberbatch's voice as a dragon Smaug. It's worth hearing in it's own merit. By the voice alone Cumberbatch delivered much more of the real performance than dull and annoying Tauriel (Evangeline Lilly) with all her dramatic looks and making eyes.

And now - about the silliest and the most ridiculous things:

1) Tauriel- which is non-existent character - is unnecessary addition to the plot. The story gains nothing here. Evangeline Lilly as she is - though has quite pretty face - is annoying and unpleasant. She is at her annoying worst. And here she plays exactly the same "Kate Austen"- character as in "Lost"-series and in the same irritating manner. At certain moments I've been experiencing sort of deja-vu and felt as if I was actually watching " Lost". I'd rather prefer the movie without a single woman in it than with "Tauriel" of that sort.

2) Love story as such in here. In "Hobbit", seriously ? Whatever for? It is inept and inappropriate. It is ridiculous and doesn't fit. Tolkien didn't write that sort of stuff. Yes, there were few love stories in his books, but all of them were extremely epic and high-ranking due to the participants, their level and significance of events. The pallid eye-making at each other, called "love story" here is definitely neither of aforementioned.

3) Love story between the elf and the dwarf. Ha-ha-ha! There is something sickly and morbid in the very concept of it, you know. And it ruins the very idea of how the system functions in the Tolkien's world - even for me it's obvious, let alone for the experts of Tolkien. I am surprised they didn't go further and performed the hobbit-elf or orc-elf relationship for that matter...or any other morbid perversions (for example Gandalf-Galadriel, Azog- Thorin pairing - because they are as much "why not" as any other non- existent rubbish in this movie).

4) Love story as delivered here. It was badly written and badly played. They were boring, pathetic and ridiculous, both of them. It seemed they were forced to make it because it was kind of obvious as the credit for Tauriel's presence and they spared a lot of screen-time for nothing.

5) The character of Alfrid. Though was not badly done by the actor...but was totally pointless and useless as such. Who cares? Who gives a damn about Alfrid? Whatever for he even was there , spending so much of the screen time? The scenes with him supposed to be funny and refreshing, I guess...but they were boring and stupid and obvious, and I personally only waited for them to end and for Alfrid to disappear , because he was insignificant and not interesting.

So "6" is my vote. For Martin Freeman, for Richard Armitage, but for the royal presence of Thranduil and Lee Pace's outstanding performance mainly, which was a pure joy to watch and which made me watch it through.

Powerful, brilliant, captivating adaptation of Elizabeth Gaskell's masterpiece. The casting is perfect. Each and every actor is where he/she is meant to be. The atmosphere, the spirit are delivered perfectly.

Richard Armitage....well, there's no need to say anything. He is The One and Only Mr.Thornton ever :) He seems to step down from the pages of the novel.

Daniela Danby-Ashe as Margaret is so breathtakingly beautiful, you can't take your eyes off her luminous face as if chiselled of marble. But her play even more so betters her beauty.

And - by the way - the music is outstanding! Enchanting and beautiful, very genuinely creating the atmosphere.

The only flaw of the film is that they - for some reason - cut out few of the most crucial dialogs/lines between the leading characters. Well, they are not cut out entirely, but thoroughly changed, and, though are pretty fine in their own merit, would be much better for them to be the exact quotations from the novel. For example the scene of the first proposal and the final scene of reaching the understanding between John Thornton and Margaret. These scenes were made wonderfully....but - if the film-makers followed exactly the dialogs as they were put in the book (especially Thornton's lines and expressive manner) - it would be by far more perfect and breathtaking than it already is.

So, my vote "9", not "10" - for these little but crucial (from my point of view) alterations from the original dialogs of the book.