Hey- I saw it! (2D 24FPS, btw. Would have seen 3D HFR, but didn't have the option)
Probably the best overall of the three... but lots of stupid stuff all of the same.
However, the combined stupid doesn't compete with the Tom, Bert and Bill or the Jolly Ol' Goblin King in AUJ. And the overall story is better than DoS, so there you go. It's the least childish- it's problems stem more from adolescence rather than childhood.
**HEREAFTER THAR BE SPOILERS**
Three complaints I've heard probably the most-
c1. Smaug dies in the pre-credit sequence. Should have just been the ending of DoS.
c2. Battle is 5 pages in the book and ~1.5 hours in the movie?
c3. Three movies instead of two (instead of one)
My soft rebuttals:
r1. Because Cliff Hangers! And since this movie could have been called "The Hobbit: The Sucking Sound you Hear is the Rush of the Armies of Five Races of Middle Earthen men and beasts Trying to Take Power in the Vacuum of a Dead Smaug" or "Hobbit: TSSYHITROTAOFROMEMABTTTPITVOADS" or "Hobbit: The Suck" for short. I think the cliffhanger ending of DoS was fine, and this movie really does tell the story of what happens when you take out a monger like Smaug. It makes sense to have it be at the start of this movie.
r2. In the book, Bilbo gets knocked out during the battle, and everything is quickly summarized for him once he wakes up. It's not that the battle itself is short, but Tolkien decided to not show it. Showing the battle in full is probably the best argument for making three movies. I think it's wonderful that the movie is long enough to allow the battle to be so fully presented. Are there moments that need to go? Yes, but not so much to bring the runtime down as to bring the level of stupid down.
r3. In recent years, I have become more fascinated by the role of Three Act Structure in storytelling- not so much its role as its inevitability. I have been curious as Harry Potter and Hunger Games (and others) have expanded final books into dual movies. With natural breaks between the acts, the place to end the films would be much closer to thirds than halves. I was curious whether new story elements would be introduced so the first movies could be ended with something other than a card telling you to leave the theatre. Which is not a new concept for Rings movies. It's pretty much how I felt at the end of FotR.
Okay, onto my list of stupid, in no particular order. Wait, that's not true, here's number one have to go:
UNIBROW MAN
now the rest come in no particular order:
Troll Babies? (or is that with a z?)
Two kinds of too silly-
Cute silly like trolls bashing their heads and falling down. Cue the sliding trombone. Or trolls falling over and smashing a squad of orcs. Wah waaaahhhh....
"Awesome" silly- stuff that's just too over the top, or failed attempts at awesomeness. Most of these will probably get their own itemization later, so I won't go on.
The "You haven't told me your name" and "It's, wait for it... MoneyRobin!" moment. I saw this coming from a mile away. How do big movie-prequels keep falling for this terrible trope? Does anyone enjoy that moment? There was a toothless red neck close to me that yelled our "OREGANO!" at that moment. I guess he felt smart. It's very similar to the scene in AUJ, "Frodo, where are you off to?" "I'm going to go read this book under a tree and wait for.... GANDALF THE WIZARD!"
You hurt because your love was real.
How quickly did Legolas and Tauriel make it from Dale to... that northern place, so quickly? Is it only an hour or so away?
CGI Billy Connoly
Half of what Legolas does.
I liked the ice fight and the bridge fight, but they went on too long and were... too much. Edited down I think they would be fantastic.
The Sauron scene- I was really looking forward to this. It was just... hrm... don't know. It was Weathertoppish... but it was so NOT Weathertop. And Christopher Lee went all Tasmanian Yoda in this scene. Boo.
12 or 13 lightly armored dwarves turn the tide of 100 dwarves against 200 orcs? I don't care if he is the king, and if he has Howard Shore on his side.
More eagles save the day. I don't know what it costs to keep the eagles happy, but it's apparently worth it.
I guess I'll stop there. I could probably go on.
I can't wait until the extended version comes out and a decent version of the trilogy pops up on FE.org. The Arkenstone version of AUJ fixed a lot of my problems with it.