Below my expectations

Rating: 5/10 (6 April 2013)

I am a life long fan of Tolkien. I've read The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings trilogy countless times. Needless to say I was excited when the Lord of the Rings was made into a movies, or I should say, movies. I was not disappointed. A truly epic adventure. Likewise, I've been anxiously awaiting The Hobbit. I have to say I'm more then a little disappointed. I'm afraid I've seen what happens when common sense takes a back seat to corporate greed and/or ambition. It made sense for the Lord of the Rings to be three long movies. After all, it was based on three long books. But The Hobbit story simply doesn't contain enough material to make a 9 hour epic. What we got is a 9 hour epic bore. Oh, the acting is outstanding. Martin Freeman was the perfect choice to play a young Bilbo. The sets are breathtaking. The effects are marvelous. As expected. But the story is where it fails. The producers had to add so much padding to the film to fill out the 9 hours that movie has an unbelievably SLOW pace. Scene after scene of pointless inactivity that adds nothing to the story line whatsoever. It's there just to fill out the run time. I found myself yawning repeatedly. I am so much reminded of the scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail....."Get on with it". Found myself saying that more then once during this movie.