Yeahhhh! Graphics! Action scenes! AWESOOOME!

Rating: 1/10 (16 December 2012)

Let's kick off with the score I've given it. 5/10. That's for the reasonable job with the comedy, design, and things not related to story and pacing (with the exception of Gollum and the cave scene). I am tired of saying "The graphics are great, but..." I have rated it 1 here to reduce the average in order to reflect reality and not the fanboy love-in.
I am not going to sugar-coat this film or give it a good review just because people tell me I should. I am sick to death of sheep. I don't care if this is Tolkien or Jackson or how much money it took to make the film. If it's bad, it's bad.
Graphics count for nothing. The reason I watch a film is primarily for a great story and well written characters (I have to CARE about what is going on). I don't get dazzled by graphics anymore (if I ever did at all), and 3D action films do not make a film good. So right there is the problem with The Hobbit. The story is shallow and pretentious and cardboard. Let's run through why the film had me rolling my eyes throughout:

The introduction is way too long.

-The pacing is dire (and scenes that weren't in the book have been added).
-One brainless action scene after another for no other reason than to eat screen time (because the book is 300 pages and they are trying to maximise profits by having 3 films at 3 hours each). Watching 2 rock monsters fight for minutes is not captivating or cool, it's boring.
-Implausibility factor 10. I understand this is a fantasy. I understand that if everything was ultra realistic it would end up boring, but for heaven sake, that does not mean you can get away with what happens in this film. EVERY single scene shows something that would ordinarily kill someone. Fall down multiple ravines, battle 100's goblins with just a few men, rocks the size of cars flying at you... and no scratches, no deaths. It just doesn't work.
-Lazy writing. You know you are witnessing a lazy-ass story when your heroes are saved at the last minute EVERY time in multiple scenes. Where does that leave us? It leaves us with all main characters intact and no dramatic tension. Every scene you see a massive rock crush a character you know they aren't dead. Every time you see them perilously close to the edge of a cliff, you know that even if they fall, they will be saved and/or survive. Further to this point, smaller problems exist such as Bilbo never handling a sword to suddenly taking on killer beasts like he has been to He-Man training school.
-Cliché crap. The way Bilbo goes from being an outcast to being accepted is contrived and rushed and totally obvious. It just smacks of lazy cliché writing. The acting that goes with it is not good either. Kind of like "I once said... you weren't one of us... OH how wrong I was!" *Roll eyes time*. Then you have the White Orc that Thorin said he had slain, and you just KNEW it was coming back at the end for some sort of showdown, didn't you? Talk about obvious. I blame the film for this because the scenes involved in the exposition were way too see-through... might as well have had Thorin wink at the camera! That brings me onto the whole "Thorin dislikes Elves" angle, where you know the Elves are suddenly going to become important allies just so we can have a totally obvious and expected reversal. Wow, Thorin, you got Bilbo wrong and you got the Elves wrong too! DRAMA.
-Lack of character development (Think Final Fantasy XII if you are a gamer). This was the stake through the heart of this film... Most of the dwarfs are completely redundant and I could not identify or even accept Bilbo. This was due partly to the lack of character development, partly to the script and partly to the actor. Same goes for Thorin except the scenes he is in feel more like a bad soap opera than they do a "blockbuster" film.
It is just dull and lifeless and stupid. You shouldn't do things just because you can. The LOTR trilogy for the most part had decent pacing, and it didn't do things too fast, too soon, or for the sake of it. The original trilogy suffers from some the complaints above AT TIMES, but nothing like The Hobbit does... The Hobbit is in a league of its own. I went to watch an engaging movie and I got a cartoon.
The use of CGI is also glaringly obvious and fake; like with the prequels of Star Wars, when the movie cuts between humans and CGI blobs, your brain is onto it. Stop relying on CGI for everything. It's getting annoying, not to mention OLD. At least Jackson makes real sets so it isn't a total wash out.
There is some real potential in this film and it is squandered; whether that's because Tolkien wrote a flawed book, whether it is because he wrote a book that doesn't take well to a feature length movie or whether it is because Jackson messed it up, that's what we ended up with.
The Hobbit should have been 2 films, and making it 3 has been the final nail in the coffin.
So, I am sat here mightily annoyed that once again graphics and self indulgent, completely pointless action scenes have trumped good storytelling and pacing.
Of course, the film is still entertaining at times and the 3D visuals are fun, but for me it is a massive disappointment.
Visuals can not MAKE a film, but when used like in The Hobbit, they sure as hell can break it.