** Some spoilers ahead **

Let me preface this review by stating that it comes from the perspective of someone who read the book first, and so holds the movie up to that standard and has certain expectations. But, I’m not completely against creative license and I know it’s impossible to make a movie perfectly faithful “by the book.” I enjoyed the second part of The Hobbit, but I have to say it was my least favorite of all the recent Tolkien movie adaptations thus far, and for the first time ever I was left feeling a bit disappointed.

I was willing to allow for some scenes and situations in the movie that were not in the novel. It’s one book stretched out into three movies—I get it, things need to be expanded upon. Gandalf’s encounter with the necromancer is not depicted in the novel, and we only see the moments in which he mysteriously leaves and comes back from it. So this is a perfect situation to show in the film, as a way to fill out moments left undetailed in the book. Though riddled with inaccuracies, such as the presence of orcs chasing Gandalf and the others when really no such thing happens in the novel, I wasn’t overly bothered by them. There are a lot of complex things in the Middle Earth universe that would take too long to explain, even in three hour long movie formats, so some of the inaccuracies, which simplified the transition between the current story and the later Lord of the Ring movies, did not hinder the movie itself.

What did hinder the movie, at least for me, was the reliance on cliches and overly predictable Hollywood crutches. One particular annoyance was the cheap romance that was haphazardly thrown in, speedily and predictably between a character that does not exist in the novel, and one of the dwarves. In actuality I was quite pleased with the introduction of the nonexistent character herself—a badass female elf slaying orcs like a boss in a story grossly lacking in female characters? Sign me up. That’s the kind of creative license I’m looking for, and the kind that may actually even improve upon the original story. But my delight was quickly denied as soon as Tauriel appeared in a fight scene in the same frame as Kili, played by the ever handsome Aidan Turner. That’s when I knew. I knew, as the audience also knew, without the characters having even recognized each other, that this brief, framed moment signaled the typical, hastily thrown-in romance that Hollywood loves to revel in. I groaned then and there. Of course, introduce the female character for the express purpose of using her as a vehicle for romance—because that’s the foolproof formula isn’t it? The blueprint was set. We all knew Tauriel would inexplicably jeopardize her own life and position among her people to follow Kili. We all knew she would arrive just in the nick of time and save Kili from death. We knew there would be an overly sentimental admission of love. My eyes were continually rolling.

Perhaps you may be thinking it is unfair for me to criticize the corniness of the cliched romance when so many other aspects of the movie are rather corny and campy, but deliberately so, as after all the novel is a children’s book. There’s a lot of humor in the movie, as there is in the novel. But when that becomes predictable as it does in the movie it’s suddenly a lot less entertaining. Rather than spending so much time on the clumsy, slapstick moments of the dwarves in the (much too drawn out) scene in the caverns of the Lonely Mountain, why not include the humorous scene in the novel where the dwarves must trick Beorn in order to get into his house, by slyly appearing two by two? Or the moment when one of the dwarves falls into enchanted waters in Mirkwood and falls asleep, having to be carried the rest of the way? These are the sorts of tidbit humorous moments I was hoping to see, rather than the arbitrary, slipshod additions included mainly to fill the time.

Indeed, the movie convinced me that while I love seeing the Tolkien world on the big screen, it might have been better if this movie were split up in two (or maybe not at all?), rather than three. It became pretty clear that the creative choices made served the purpose of extending the plot, rather than improving it or rendering it authentically for the cinematic medium. Still, the special effects, scenery, and most of the acting was top-notch as usual. I’m just hoping for better things for the final installment.