Ever try to fire an arrow? Ever try to do it very quickly while still being accurate? Ever try it on a standard (non-compound) bow? Ever then try to kill people in excess of 30 yards away coming from different directions in rapid succession while on an unsteady platform of dwarf heads that are floating down a river? Well, Orlando Bloom, who was an excellent shot in the sequels to this movie, is unreal in his skills for this movie. It reminds me of the Star Wars prequels where the vehicles got faster and more powerful than they are in the original movies.
It's normal in a movie of this type to fudge such things to make skillful people seem superhuman. In this case, he is literally superhuman as an elf. Evangeline Lilly steps in to be just as freaking superheroic as Orlando. Ordinarily, it's awesome to see Batman kick some butt or Wolverine slash a dozen or so bad guys at once. These guys are superheroes who have flaws and strengths that can be played off of. When Orlando enters God Mode, it's not even exciting. It's like watching Stephen Seagal in one of his movies where he built what he referred to as an "air of invincibility" around himself. There's no danger, so it's boring.
Because we see most of this movie through the eyes of the dwarfs, the elves come off as mostly jerks. This is not to say that they are not jerks; many of them totally are. But, there are lots of jerks around, and not all of the elves count as jerks.
I'm not sure if Sylvester McCoy is supposed to be comic relief as Radagast the Brown, but I find the little animation that they do of the birds and the moss on his face to be extremely distracting. I'm under the impression that he is supposed to be pretty much as powerful as Gandolf, but it doesn't really come through at any point. If I were to cut down these three movies to a single movie, his character would be on the cutting room floor.
Are there enough places to see Stephen Fry, though? For my money, there are not. So, he shows up as the ruler of Laketown, and he does a good job. Realistically, he didn't have much to do, but he did it well. When it came to Laketown, Luke Evans was what it was all about, and he's a bit too beefcake for my tastes. I'm going to say it: not everyone should be a main character. Sometimes, you build supporting characters to support the real heroes. If you make everyone a hero, you devalue heroism.
And we finally see the dragon. Voiced by the impressive Benedict Cumberbatch, he moves across large piles of gold coins completely silently when our hero makes noise with the slightest movement. This kind of movie trick is a little annoying. I remember when I watched World War Z and the plane had a hole in it and the zombies were all clamoring at a door and Brad Pitt made a slight noise on the other side of the plane, and all of the zombies ran after him. This reminded me of that - sound works however the director wants it to work.
As a consequence of this being the middle movie, it is unresolved and will likely be generally unloved. I know I really thought that not enough actually happened, and they really needed to not make this one book into three movies.
Directing was generally good
Acting was great
Story was good, but Jeebus, stop dragging things out
Effects were great
Dialog was good
3.25/5