The "Offroading with Bombur" during the barrel sequence was hilarious.
I will forever refer to it as that from now on. I LOVED that sequence. XD Bombur somehow managed to completely steal the show this time around. He was mildly amusing in the first film, but this time through, despite him not having much screen time, every second of him was gold, particularly him managing to outrun EVERYONE to the cottage.
I actually kind of like what they're doing with the elves and Tauriel honestly, because this IS a trilogy, and if they had simply passed through and been done with it, by the time we got around to the war of the five armies in the final film it would feel like they popped back up out of nowhere. If this was a single film then that wouldn't be an issue.
I was a little on edge about the ending point, but only for a moment. It leaves me very excited for the next film, and alleviates my worries that the final film would be crammed with nothing but filler to pad out two and a half hours leading up to a 30 minutes battle. This way we have two big events happening (and perhaps three depending where that dangling Gandalf thread leads), meaning we'll have a lot of epic story events and probably just the right amount of new material for the film. I was also a bit weirded out and put off by splitting the party at first, but when you think about it, it makes sense for the film. The party is the main focus of the story, and if they were all trapped on the mountain then it would be very difficult to open the third film with a huge sequence of drama and danger that they weren't even there for and then shift focus back to them. This way a few of the party plus Legolas and Tauriel are there for the action and we can kind of get behind that, perhaps while we have some intercuts of the others making a mad dash back to Lake Town to save their companions. Either way, struck me as odd at first, but I think it will work out for the best in the end.
