This is where things already began to go wrong

Rating: 3/10 (25 April 2015)

The mere idea of turning a rather short book originally written for children into a, what, 9 hour trilogy, the addition of things like a very unlikely love-story, additional characters, characters from the successful first trilogy all basically say "We want to hit all the demographics".
The book originally was written for children. It's shorter and light-hearted than LOTR. And sure, the dwarfs seem to be perfect to make children giggle and sell menus at McDonald's.
Then again, the amount of heads being cut off, (to children) scary monsters and, in the final movie, two very cruel death-scenes which DEFINITELY are not OK for children make this seem weird.
Lets take the dwarfs. Peter Jackson is known for an often very juvenile humor. Silly sizes for weapons, scenes like Legolas skateboarding, the catapult-trolls in the third movie, the "disgustiness" of the goblin king. So juvenile. In the book, the dwarfs looked kinda similar. You could tell them apart, but they didn't look very different.
Here, PJ wanted more visual difference. And therefore, the dwarfs look like a total outlandish, odd group of freaks. One looks feminine. Two look like small humans. Thorin looks like a shrunken Aragorn. One has an ax stuck into his head. One looks like a character from the "Asterix" comics. One looks like he has a hairdo similar to that in the "Something About Mary" movie in stereo.
The new camera technique used for this might be technically impressive. I do think that the sharp focus, the specific look the FPS give do not fit a fantasy movie AT ALL. Its way TOO focused, too "high-res". It makes the CGI and trick shots even more unrealistic... Rivendell and other places look like in a video game, ca. 2007.
Most of all, this extra-sharpness makes the movie feel cold, sterile. And that fits, because this movie simply feels mostly empty and cold to me. Heartless.
One of the most ridiculous things is Azog. Now, even if Jackson kept referring to the appendices of LOTR (which have enough material to cover many movies, without the need to add badly-written ninja elf queens), when did he miss the part that Azog, one of the villains here, was killed years ago. His deeds started a war, and his death ended it. Why did he have to be included? He looks out of place. Visually too, because he looks like 100% CGI... a white orc with some scars that look like gills. Even worse, he is badly written. He is used to stretch out the movie with pointless skirmishes, 80s style: Group of villains hunt heroes, turn up suddenly, fight, heroes escape with the villains yelling after them.
Which leads me to Radagast. While certain viewers apparently enjoy references to bird poo, dope-smoking and sleds pulled by rabbits... we are talking about a char who is basically at the same level as Gandalf and Sauron. He, to me, was a tragic figure. He was more interested in animals and nature, and didn't get involved too much in the battles.
Radagast in the movie looks like he was kicked out of Hogwarts. This almost immortal being, incredibly old, supposedly wise, looks like a character from a silly Bill and Ted movie. Bird poo on his face, jerking around like a slobbering mad professor, only there for comic relief.
I mentioned this in the other review: I don't know what happened. Did Jackson simply lose all self-control? Did the success of the LOTR movies make him go "OK, I have some leverage now, so let's make these movies like I REALLY wanna do them"? Did he really think (or, gasp, consider it RESPECTFUL) to take the writing of a genre-defining author who worked on his book for several decades, constantly refining and polishing them, loving the characters and world he created, and retell them in a silly, juvenile and tasteless way? Does he think he knows better than Tolkien did, or that he could tell a story better? Does he think that the audience is so stupid he needs to add something for every demographic, from children to teens who want love-stories or pot-references, to Transformer-fans?
Does he think that, after LOTR and the Hobbit are among the most successful books ever, the audience would shy away from an adaption at least close to the original, without stretching it beyond the breaking point, adding toilet humor, "hur hur big weapon" humor, a totally stupid, pointless and horribly-written love-story? And with all this crap that was added, it was too hard to make the eagles speak? That was TOO FAR OUT? They could have explained why they didn't fly the travellers to Erebor directly. Many people who didn't read the book went "LOL why don't they just fly there all the way with the eagles?" Well, since Peter apparently thought it was too weird to have eagles speak (compared to a dwarf and elf having a love-story on the level of "The Blue Lagoon", stone transformers battling, orc-mounted catapults, elves defying ALL the laws of gravity many times, elves killing what felt like a bazillion orcs ninja-style), this isn't explained, and seen as a plot-hole.
Of the three movies, this is still the best, before PJ and his team completely lose all sense of taste and perspective in the second and third movie. I am actually glad for Mr. Tolkien that he isn't able to see this. Considering Mrs. Rowling was involved in the Potter-movies and made sure it stayed true to the story, being VERY strict, I think Tolkien would have started to sob had he seen PJs idea for a book he wrote as a labor of love. All the kudos PJ deserves for LOTR go down the toilet, as apparently, he really IS the film-maker his earliest movies suggest. Vain, childish, tasteless, disrespectful and a horrible writer.