An expected money-spinner

Rating: 5/10 (15 January 2013)

Those who thought Christopher Tolkien had a very deep economic interest in his father's heritage (Sell-a-million) can officially claim that Peter Jackson has now outdone him, and by far. In a way it should have been expected. Turning a naive and simple children story into a film trilogy would require excellent writing, major creative genius and a concept at least half as good as the one in LOTR. None of these can be found here. But the lust for profit is obvious. The film has a ridiculously long beginning, is terribly written, the plot is hacked into a series of unrelated events resulting in a total lack of flow. The prolonged scenes at battlefields seem to scream 'come on guys, keep it up five more minutes and we'll get us our trilogy' and at one point, when the dwarfs' troops rally in battle and run back to face their opponents there is an unbelievable Baywatch back-flash, though admittedly with the bonus of Richard Armitage instead of Hasselhof. Why five stars? For Richard Armitage and Martin Freeman. With the best wishes that once this is over they will still be in the running for the parts that they truly deserve and not such junk.