The magic... it's gone.

Rating: 5/10 (6 March 2014)

I am a huge fan of the Lord of the Rings film series. For me, it's probably one of if not the best film series i've seen. But the Hobbit for various reasons falls so short of this epic series that it might as well just die with the Balrog.
Why so harsh? Well it's because all of the magic that was in the Lord of the Rings is not there anymore. Peter Jackson and the rest of his crew have become somewhat lazy learning that apparently everything can now be CGI. The magic that came with the previous trilogy was that there was so much effort put into the 'bigiatures' of the sets and the action was mainly done in real life, the action was beautifully simple and only complicated when it needed to be, but now that there is the option of realistic CGI now, there is no need to put so much effort into this anymore. Due to this I feel like Jackson has tried to go 'bigger and better' but the reality is that it's more like he's saying 'let's make a large video game'. The sets are cgi, the people and characters are cgi, animals are cgi, there is no more physical creativity and effort that was in the original trilogy which makes this a flop. I mean even the main antagonist and his minions could have been done with makeup, but it takes less time and money to just animate it. Along with this there was less emphasis on the journey that the dwarfs are going through and more on the action or situations they are finding themselves in, this makes the epicness and distance of the journey seem less dangerous and massive and more like they are going around the corner. Massive beautiful landscapes is what was expected and this was not gratified much throughout the film.
It isn't all terrible though, I for one much liked the character Radagast, I thought he was portrayed rather terrifically and Sir Ian Mckellen as Gandalf is always on the right side of awesome. What was great about this film is that we saw Gandalf much more as a wizard, he did more than just turn his staff into a flashlight and throw fellow wizards around. Along with this I thought the scene with Gollum was fantastic, comical but continuously reminding us about how dangerous this character really is, a balance that many directors aren't able to do. Finally our young Mr. Bilbo Baggins played by Martin Freeman. If I were to pick a word to describe his performance it would be 'triumphant'. He plays the role of Bilbo to such perfection at times shivers go down my spine, his line delivery paired with his acting talent fits the character so well it's as if he were born to play it.
in summary this was not an all bad film, but I believe that Jackson and the rest of the crew have become lazy and much less passionate about the film, it is more of a job now rather than a hobby it seems. To answer gollum's question, no... the film is not "juicy" and it's not "soft" it's more like the taste of goblin, keeps you satisfied from being hungry but leaves a foul taste in your mouth