The Hobbit: An Expected Disappointment.

Rating: 6/10 (14 April 2013)

I approached The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey with trepidation, fearful that Peter Jackson, a director whose career was born of excess, would go unnecessarily way over the top, as he sometimes did with his The Lord of The Rings trilogy (particularly Return of the King), and pretty much all of the time with King Kong (unforgivable, seeing as he already had a perfect cinematic blueprint to work from).
And go way over the top he does. Frequently.
With the film split into three parts in order to milk as much cash as possible from Tolkien fans, Jackson is given plenty of opportunity for bloated action scenes, the adventure becoming more preposterous as it progresses, its characters surviving the most perilous situations, often with little more than a scratch to show for their remarkably lucky escape from almost certain doom. The use of crude humour is also excessive, designed to please younger audience members for whom burps and bogies are comedy gold, but a lot less funny for adults.
But perhaps what is most frustrating about The Hobbit is that, despite all of the expensive CGI laden effects sequences and the silly slapstick from its band of merry dwarfs, the film's finest and funniest moment takes place in the peace and solitude of an underground cavern between just two characters, reminding us of what a great director Jackson can be when it matters. If only there had been more movie-making of this calibre during the three hours it took to tell only one third of what is a comparatively short book. Sigh!
6/10, a rating which some people might think is far too high given my review, but I sure ain't giving it less than I gave that damn giant ape catastrophe.