Overall, not bad...

Rating: 8/10 (4 December 2013)

THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY is frankly one of the better entries in this series- for the most part. However... when our heroes fall afoul of the goblins, the computers take over and we're once again dashing headlong up and down a virtual roller-coaster ride that almost undoes all that's been carefully established prior to this. There's absolutely no suspense- much less drama- when it comes to the gravity-defying cgi. Better to have given us a handful of PRACTICAL effects and a suspenseful hunt through darkened caverns than what we see here. And it's bad enough that the cgi are employed so heavily in the chase- but then they're used in the follow-up scene as well, so that we end up with two back-to-back video sequences that lack- again- any real suspense or any drama at all. Still, I'm giving the movie an 8 out of 10 because the scenes leading up to the cartoon parts are good.