Fantastic, yet the plot just needed tightening up.

Rating: 8/10 (9 April 2013)

Firstly I did not come to Tolkien via the films, but from reading The Hobbit aged about 13 and dozens of times since. Lord of the Rings, again aged 13, about seven or eight times since, Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales and just about everything else Tolkien wrote including academic papers.
For me, therefore, this film was a thirty year wait that could hardly fail to bring emotion. It was better than expected, better than hoped for, and yet.......
Read the books and you will see that Tolkien was generally understated in his story telling. Generally things happen that are tightly bound by a sense of reality within a fictional setting. Characters do die and are thus exposed to a certain amount of risk and danger but not to ridiculous extremes. Where Jackson lets us all down is by just pushing things beyond the credible for cinematic drama. Rather than keeping the audience on the edge of their seats by real fear and concern, like a Roller-coaster ride where the rider feels that there actually is some danger (and there is), he gives us a simulated roller-coaster that we all know is perfectly safe but tries to inject thrill by pushing the effects to the occasionally ludicrous.
The slow build up works, because this isn't an instant thrill of a film. It's the first part of a three part epic. It builds as it should. If you want cheap and fast thrills, go see something mindless and bloody.
So what is ludicrous? 1. The Trolls steal ponies, crash through trees, set up camp within spitting distance of the Dwarfs who are settling down to camp in the wild, yet most of the Dwarfs don't hear a thing.
2. Radagast and his Rabbit Sled is a complete invention and a silly departure from the book. Why is the Hedgehog called Sebastian? Even the name Augustus would be too modern for what Tolkien envisaged, an age before History. Radagast needed to be in, but a sledge pulled by deer would have been at least half believable. Why did Radagast lead the Orcs away by going in circles, leading them constantly back to the Dwarfs? All it would have taken is a sentence "I can't beat their speed but I can outmaneuver them and distract them." Lazy.
3. The chase under the Misty Mountains, the sheer number of Orcs, falling down chasms and riding a collapsing wooden platform just plumbed the depths of implausibility. It became a pantomime chase, choosing spectacle over drama and action.
4. Stone giants? Vast giants made of stone smashing the mountainside to bits. The pass over the mountains was supposed to be an ancient route and one that is eventually re-opened and made safe when the Orcs are driven out post-Hobbit. Were these stone giants just waiting for this particular night to smash the path to smithereens and most of the mountainside with it? What do they eat, where do they live, what are they doing just sitting around waiting for this particular day. Why were they fighting? Just plain unnecessary, ridiculous and spoiled the film.
5. The Eagles swoop down, save the Dwarfs then drop them at the Carrock without any explanation as to why they didn't just fly to the other side of Mirkwood. Just a short few words between Gandalf and Thorin or Gandalf and the Lord of the Eagles would have sorted it, just as it does in the book. Again, needed tightening up.
All in all, I loved it, but there were times when I muttered, "Jackson! It was all going so well until you did that!"
90 percent brilliant, fantastic, great, lovely, wonderful. 8 percent ridiculous pantomime that could have and should have been so much better just by being a little less ludicrous. 2 percent tightening up on the script and plot.
With Part Two and Three I just hope that they sleep on some of the decisions to depart from the Books and save the daft bits for the Directors Cut with a warning "the following bits can be a bit silly".