Very Entertaining

Rating: 8/10 (13 January 2013)

Good adaptation of Tolkien's book, well-fitting with the earlier Lord of the Rings films. Overall very satisfying. The visual sweep and grandeur of this film conveys everything I would expect from a filmic adaptation of Tolkien. Especially impressive (as in the LOTR trilogy) were the scenes in the Shire (I wish I could live in a human-sized version of Bilbo's underground dwelling!), and, of course, Rivendell. The "Riddles in the Dark" sequence was nearly perfect.
There were a few drawbacks. To earn a "10 out of 10" from me, the next installment will have to do better in these areas:
1. Too many goofy faces. The physical appearance of the trolls, goblins, and even some of the dwarfs is borderline ludicrous. While this is fine for the trolls, who are supposed to be big and stupid and their physical features reflect such, the goblins look more like gross muppets than scary monsters, making it hard at times to take them seriously as bad guys.
2. The addition of scenes/elements not in Tolkien's book. The director included material from the LOTR back story to establish links between this trilogy and LOTR, but these scenes sometimes feel thrown in or (worse) seem included as space-takers so the filmmakers can stretch the text into three movies (and make bigger bucks at the box office). This "apocryphal" material needs to be better integrated into the main storyline.
I also wished the "down down to Goblin-town" song appeared in the movie, but this is a minor caveat.
I watched the film in 24fps, in 2D, so I didn't experience any of the much-ballyhooed visual difficulties attributed to other formats.