Disappointing

Rating: 3/10 (5 January 2013)

It was always clear that THE HOBBIT, being by far the lesser book, would also make the lesser movie. It simply lacks the depth, the drama, the humanity, the strong characters, and relationships of LOTR. I had already been surprised by the fact that this lovely, but relatively short and rather one-dimensional book was to be made into not one but three movies. However, nothing had prepared me for this disappointment. The storytelling is tedious and the dialog often seems rather forced. The actors are good and do a decent, sometimes even a great job – especially Martin Freeman, Richard Armitage, and the ever brilliant Andy Serkis. But most of the time they seem to be in want of a decent script and inspired direction. Furthermore, I thoroughly disliked the look of the film. I had expected the Hobbit to be as visually stunning as the three LOTR-movies, maybe even more so. No such luck. While in the former films, they had managed beautifully to make CGI seem real and believable, now even the real photography looks artificial and rather cheap. The high-definition robs the images of their magic and makes them look – at least in my perception - like low budget student productions that could not afford a decent movie camera. Maybe I am just too old for this video-game look, but I really hope this is not the future of film-photography. Of course the film does have its moments and is not a full let down. A great cast, a great score, some nice ideas. But I am still very much in doubt if I will watch the next two installments.