A colorful action adventure mostly for children

Rating: 1/10 (9 May 2013)

Despite many deviation from the books, I enjoyed The Lord of the Rings movie trilogy (especially the first movie). Sure, Peter Jackson did cut and (unfortunately) add in a lot of stuff that wasn't in the books and many things were portrayed inadequately, but in the end the cinematic brilliance of the movies won me over.
This time, however, I just couldn't force myself to enjoy the film. Here is a list of things that I personally found to be its biggest problems.
1. CGI. Too much is too much. The excessive reliance on computer generated graphics cheapens the experience and distances the viewer from the characters. Many scenes look like taken out of a video game cut-scene. Some characters like Azog are completely CGI! In addition to excessive amounts of CGI, the movie has a lot of action scenes with crazy camera movements (impossible to attain with actual cameras) which again contributes to the "video game" effect.
2. Borrowed LOTR concepts. The structure of this movie is very similar to FOTR. It starts with a backstory, telling historical events concerning the plot - just like in LOTR. Then a "fellowship" is formed who travel around visiting elves, climbing mountains (avoiding an avalanche of rocks/snow), fighting through underground tunnels (goblin town/Moria).
There's even a council involved and we see many characters of LOTR that weren't even mentioned in the book. Was the appealing to the LOTR crowd really necessary? What does it add to the story of the dwarfs? The Hobbit was written from Bilbo's perspective but the movie is trying much too hard to be a grand, epic story in the same vein as LOTR while retaining the children's tale aspect. It's unbalanced and simply does not work.
3. A lot of the comedy I found to be very poor. Remembering the funny moments in LOTR, I can't help but wonder what happened to Jackson's sense of humour. Of course, a lot of the humour in LOTR was based around Gimli, of which I was a little upset because in the books dwarfs are anything but comical. Nonetheless, I found myself genuinely laughing at the scene of Gimli talking about dwarf women to Eowyn, the scene with hobbits sparring with Boromir and attacking him jokingly, the scene with one of the hobbits asking "So where are we going?" at the Council of Elrond, the scene at the party with Frodo throwing Sam into dance with Rosie and the one with Frodo asking Gandalf: "Mordor, Gandalf! Is it left or right?", I could go on and on... All these moments and many, many others still make me smile. And what do we get in The Hobbit? Trolls sneezing on Bilbo and him warning the trolls not to eat the dwarfs, because they have worms? Really?
The big problem here, I guess, is that Jackson decided to continue the LOTR trend of portraying dwarfs as clumsy, comical people. And since dwarfs take up much of the screen time of The Hobbit, it's unsurprising that it turned out having this weird, supposedly comical undertone throughout. To me it blunts all the seriousness of the story and destroys any tension or dramatic elements. Which brings us to the next point.
4. Lack of suspense. I expected this movie to feel much like FOTR did - a tense, suspense-filled adventure. Unfortunately this turned out not to be the case. There is a lot of action in the Hobbit. So much that at one point it becomes dull and meaningless. The dwarfs and the hobbit survive the craziest of situations, always surviving/being saved at the last moment. Fall from 500 feet on a wooden platform? No problem - everyone's safe and sound. Get caught in the midst of a fight between two gigantic transformer-rock-monsters? Don't you worry, our heroes will get through without as much as a scratch. Ridiculous! I don't think I recall any scenes in LOTR that felt so over the top. (Well, maybe with the exception of Legolas killing the mumakil.) Just remember the ending of FOTR and compare it to the ending of The Hobbit. Completely different worlds in terms of suspense.
5. The pace. Stretching the thin novel over 3 films - each roughly 3 hours long is probably the root of all the problems. Imagine what a wreck it would have been if FOTR was stretched over 3 films? That's exactly what we're witnessing here. The movie is filled with dull action and LOTR homages to fill the screen time of a 9 hour journey that should never have been 9 hours. It should have been a single movie. Initially Peter Jackson was asked to do a single movie for LOTR, but he refused stating that he couldn't make it and do the books any justice. Then for a period he was prepared to make it into two movies! Yes, the entire LOTR - into just two movies. And what on earth possessed him to stretch this 300 page book into 9 hour cinema? I wish I knew the answer to this question...
When the Hobbit was first announced I was thrilled, I knew that if Peter Jackson directed it, the movie would be brilliant. When I heard it would be 3 movies, a shadow of doubt crept into me. Sadly, this movie became everything I hoped it wouldn't. I give it 2 out of 10 for the scene with Gollum, the beautiful sets and design. Most of the rest of the movie was disappointing.
Christopher Tolkien's words come to mind: "The chasm between the beauty and seriousness of the work, and what it has become, has overwhelmed me. The commercialization has reduced the aesthetic and philosophical impact of the creation to nothing. There is only one solution for me: to turn my head away."