Nothing like the book, and nothing like enjoyable

Rating: 2/10 (13 January 2013)

This movie is bad. Really bad. About the only good thing I can say about it is that I am not being forced to watch it now. Oh, and Gollum was done reasonably well I suppose, as far as that goes. At least the changes made there didn't seem so destructive and pointless as to be an affront to intelligence.
Personally, having endured this mess, I am amazed anyone can find something here to enjoy. Fans of the book would seem unlikely to as it shares almost nothing with that story. Fans of good movies surely would take exception to the simple fact that it was ridiculous and boring. It is hard to take this farce seriously right from the opening shots which present Hobbiton on the day of Bilbo's birthday party from Lord of the Rings and then ramble on and on for fifteen or twenty minutes without even so much as trying to establish anything relevant or meaningful. Why start there? One must presume so that old LOTR cast members could be included and the running time could be stretched to the breaking point. Stretching seemed to be the main goal of the director since so much pointless and irrelevant material has been added to this film throughout. In the almost three hours I sat in the theatre I feel confident I saw an hour and a half of filler material meant to do nothing more than take up time.
Among the worst offenders in this area must be counted the fifteen minutes or so we spend watching stone giants fighting for no reason whatsoever. Does it have anything to do with the story? No, nothing at all. Is it interesting? No, not in the least. Does it take up time? Oh yeah, bunches, and it is CGI too, so there you go. However, this is nothing compared to the absurdity of Radagast the Brown who we get to watch for what seems like an hour dressed as some sort of homeless Santa Claus with poop in his hair (that is not a joke) riding in a sled pulled by magical bunny rabbits (sadly that is not either). These moments might be among the most ridiculous I have seen in a motion picture since Peter Jackson presented us with a Central Park ice skating monkey love scene in King Kong. I think this one may win though.
And yet this is just the start. Bad, plastic sets, outrageously juvenile humour, teleporting elves, and a Thorin Oakenshield apparently being played by Macgruber are only some of what else is wrong with this movie. There is even a fantastically awful sequence in which orcs pursue Radagast and his eight magic bunnies around and around in something straight out of Benny Hill. In every way imaginable, it is just really, really bad. Really.