Expected an epic adventure-Got a CGI roller coaster.

Rating: 4/10 (16 December 2012)

The movie starts out as a warm return to middle-earth, we get a nice background-story of how the dwarfs lost their hometown, Erebor, to Smaug, the gold-seeking dragon. Smaug settles down beneath the abandoned city to guard the dwarf gold and especially the huge jewel, "the heart of the mountain" which the dwarfs found deep inside the mountain.
The build-up is very good, we get a nice transition from the aged Bilbo, on the day of his birthday and the huge party (which takes place in the first LOTR book/movie) to a younger version of the same, a hobbit who mostly spends his time alone in his hole and is absolutely not seeking any adventures(Or even any visitors).
Before the scene with Gandalf and the Dwarfs at Bilbo's house is over it's been almost 40 min of the movie already but the pace works considering it's supposed to be 3 movies and the movie is brilliant so far any way so you don't mind the long scenes.
So far so good, what could go wrong with such a nice beginning? Well, apparently quite a lot.
Somewhere along the journey the movie turns into transformers in middle- earth were every action scene is like taken out of a video game scenario, with the main characters either bouncing around on platforms falling 100 meters a turn, dodging boulders from stone giants or playing domino with trees. Between the horrible Michael Bay inspired action we get comic relief from stereotypical characters like Bombur the fat dwarf and the thin dwarf with slingshot, whatever his name was, as well as Radagast, the escaped mental patient/wizard.
The major problem with the action scenes is that all the main characters feels invulnerable, they narrowly escape death ten times per scene whilst joking it off or not showing any real emotions.
The journey does at no point feel like a struggle or a huge task like with Frodo and Sam in LOTR where you half wondered if they were going to make it, even while having read the books.
Martin Freeman does a good job as Bilbo, at least the first half hour and in the Gollum scene, in between those scenes you almost forget Bilbo is in the movie at all, because his screen-time is quite limited for a main character.
Another issue, a visual one, is the main villain, Azog the albino-orc. The problem is he's in CGI which makes him look really sh*t and out of place compared to the orcs with make-up, the difference was very obvious in some scenes. His backstory with Thorin was very far-stretched and didn't help the plot at all.
Overall a mediocre and forgettable movie, while some scenes were enjoyable, especially the beginning and the riddle scene with Gollum/Bilbo, the rest of the movie was a train-wreck. It's a mystery to me how some people call it a masterpiece.