I seem to recall there being a pretty good fan edit that condensed it down into one long movie and cut out all the unnecessary love triangle stuff.

Reloaded was well liked. Revolutions was widely panned. I also rewatched them both recently (all four plus the Animatrix in order, actually) and I found that I liked them more on rewatch, a couple decades later, than I did initially.

I recommend giving the X Man Series another try. I recently did and it gave me a warm fuzzy feeling. The original timeline just feel like perfect cheap action movies from the 2000s. Brought me back to my childhood. Same with the "Unbreakable Trilogy"

On the other hand, rewatching any season of True Detective is doable.

It's very versatile though. Every time my wife asks "why does it xyz?", in my most dramatic voice "because it was real"

She hates it lol

Their worst sin in my opinion is actually how they split off the end of the Smaug storyline to be resolved in, like, the first five minutes of the third movie (literally before the title) rather than resolving it in the second movie. Huge pacing mistake.

I recommend watching the third one, not because it is a good movie, but because it is a hilarious movie.

That's the right way to do it.

Some people have to keep watching so they can get mad, and make people who like it feel bad.

D'ye no find these eyes a wee bit dreamy?"