You have to watch, even though you don't want to.

Rating: 7/10 (28 December 2012)

There were some real positive aspects about the hobbit, BUT nothing we have not already seen before. You can't go into this movie with a lot of high expectations, and it is impossible to discuss this film without pointing out scenes that are full of spoilers.
For the most part, if you have seen Lord of the Rings, you will feel comfortable with this prequel. There is so much familiarity that middle earth should live like someplace you can drive in a couple hours time. Music is carried over with very few new themes; the set and locations have all been recreated meticulously; the original frodo and bilbo open the movie and it just feels like a continuation of the end of Return of the King. There is a lot more primary CGI/Action Capture in this, which again sits in a comfort zone in its self. Lighting, filters, camera, action.... it just seems like more of the same.
It is a slower moving movie, and at 48fps in 2D didn't really make that much of a difference. Jackson added new material which I found annoying, and many of the action sequences seemed plagiarized from the preceding trilogy. For example, the rocky path through the stone giants can't be broken free from the pass of Caradhras, and I'm sorry it was just a bit overplayed. Jackson focuses his attention on a small selection of sequences that are in the book but sometimes not all that important, however the goblin king, trolls (yet a little over the top) and riddles in the dark work out very well.
For all involved, this movie could have been extremely short and still hold true to the book. The curse of making it three movies is that no one really wants to wait 2 years to see this culminated or to see 8 plus hours of fill for a 280 page book (the Lord of The Rings was 1137 in its entirety). I curse you, Peter Jackson, because I too will be seeing what you do with the rest of your treatment of this story just like many other followers, but don't expect me to like it.