Did you go see it, Jude? Frelga?
I saw it yesterday and posted my thoughts on HoF. It might be hard to post my thoughts here, spoiler-free.
ETA: I'll try.
So I saw it today.
It was pretty good. I didn't love it, but there were parts of it that I did love. I loved Smaug. Loved, loved, loved him! That was one awesome dragon! Bilbo is, once again, awesome. (Martin Freeman outperforms everyone else in the film, imo, with the exception of being on par with Ian McKellan.)
I did enjoy Legolas, and I didn't mind Tauriel either. Some of the action sequences were over-the-top, but I do love my Elves. (I enjoyed seeing Thranduil's realm.)
- [SHOW]
- Beorn, meh. Dol Guldur, meh. I did enjoy some of the audio effects when Gandalf faces the Necromancer.
(One of my favorite things from LotR was the audio effect when the light blast emerges from Minas Morgul.) The spiders were sufficiently creepy and awful. That was a good job! Some of the stuff that I think is lame others obviously find funny.
- [SHOW]
- (The barrel action sequence, for example.)
People were laughing in the theatre.
I liked Bard, though he looks so much like Orlando Bloom that it's kind of distracting!
- [SHOW]
- I loved the golden Smaug at the end!
I knew that ending was coming, but, obviously, most of the rest of the theatre did not. You could hear the exclamations everywhere. (Basically, moaning and groaning about being left hanging. Well played, PJ.)
So, overall, quite good! Not fantastic, but quite good. Honestly, Smaug made up for a lot.