In comparison with LOTR, this must be considered one of the most disappointing films of the early millennium

Rating: 3/10 (22 March 2014)

In "The Hobbit," the excessive and already-aged parts of Peter Jackson's successful "Lord of the Rings" adaptations are ballooned to proportions more suitable for a parody, and they crowd out the elements that made the first trilogy an instant classic. Jackson preferences artificial beasts over dialogue, and comically bad action over character development. There is so much hectic running from one poorly-animated danger to the next that there is no time to revel in the beautiful landscapes of New Zealand that stole the show in the "Lord of the Rings." Even in Rivendell, a natural resting point for the characters and the story, the script remains so thin that Bilbo, the title character and ostensible hero, is given nothing to do or say. Yet two scenes later we are asked to believe that he would abandon his adventure to return there. This is sloppy storytelling.
Even the return of Cate Blanchett and Christopher Lee's beloved characters fall flat, their words wasted on a poor decision to retcon the Witch King's backstory. Permit me an esoteric digression on this important point: if, in Jackson's version, the Witch King has been thought entombed lo these many years, why do Denethor and Boromir exist in Jackson's LOTR, and what is the significance of the title "Return of the King" to Jackson's version of the Tolkien universe? People who know Tolkien's lore well will understand what I mean. Moreover, who defeated and entombed him? No man could have; we know that much from Jackson's movies. There is of course no acceptable answer, and "The Hobbit"'s treatment of the Witch King is one of Jackson's many senseless and wrongheaded deviations from the texts and from his own previous films.
It's OK for movie adaptations to modify their source material, but in this case the changes make the content and tone of "The Hobbit" difficult to reconcile with the trilogy that it supposedly sets up. In LOTR, Jackson and his co-writers went out of their way to insert minor elements of lore into the films, right down to the the trees flanking the Hollin Gate into Moria. They leaned heavily on the texts, adding and subtracting from them judiciously rather than with giddy abandon. As a result, Jackson's LOTR films reflected a great deal of the richness and resonance of the novels. By comparison, "The Hobbit" must rank as one of the most disappointing film experiences of the early 21st century.