Attended at a 3D IMAX performance of The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies yesterday and while cinematically appealing it did not “grab me”. The visuals are stunning as you’d expect but maybe that’s the problem after 6 movies, everything’s “as you’d expect”. I know, if you’ve read the books there are no spoilers but I found myself exploring Middle Earth with a sense of visual and aural wonder under the spell of LOTR. The world of The Hobbit feels a land TOO lived-in. Howard Shore’s soundtrack showed he probably exhausted all the good Leitmotif to paint the musical backdrop to LOTR and that was amazing! The interesting-est bits, for me, were Smaug, who predictably didn’t make it beyond the first 15 minutes and scenes with Gandalf and *ahem* other Hobbit interlopers, <spoiler> particularly Galadriel banishing Sauron. </spoiler>

… wow! distracted by Wil Wheaton’s first new – in a while – Radio Free Burrito, Ep 35: Ring of Fire …

Don’t get me wrong, it is not a bad film, it just didn’t resonate with me in the same way that the story, characters, soundtrack and visuals from LOTR had.