I sat stupefied with incredulous boredom

Rating: 6/10 (15 December 2012)

This film entertains while failing to enthrall as did its older brother, LOTR. I sat with a frown on my face for most of the running time, relieved by two or three chuckles.
It has been suggested that Tolkien's appeal lies not his story-telling, but in his ability to transport the reader to that alternate reality, Middle Earth. Jackson's LOTR films succeeded, despite various compromises, in that same effect. This film does not.
What went wrong?
Too much effort to integrate with established LOTR orthodoxy, I suspect. I was transported, not to Middle Earth, but to the sound stages of the previous films. I looked, not at characters, but at actors playing them. Freeman, Nesbit, and Armitage turn in real performances, but most of the actors reprising roles were wooden. Maybe because they so defined the characters in the earlier films, Jackson has been satisfied with takes wherein they simply get their lines right. Only Lee and Blachett add any dimension to their LOTR characters; the rest fall short.
It starts right away. Holm looks and sounds slightly embalmed as old Bilbo. Is it CGI makeup? Something not right in the eyebrows; lack of facial expression, intonation husky and flat with the intervening years. McKellen likewise turns in a diminished performance, his expressive range is nearly as narrow as Holm's.
Is Holm wearing contacts to match Freeman's eye color? If so, it's a mistake. We could instead infer that his eyes have been drained of color by the Ring - compare Gollum's watery orbs. Wood is no longer boyish, despite makeup, his voice more mature. Too bad he couldn't be digitally lifted from Huckleberry Finn or Oliver Twist.
Too much telling instead of showing. Can't show us Sackville-Bagginses stealing the silver? Then leave it out. Holm narrates a dwarve backstory so parallel to the "forging of the rings" flashback in Fellowship it's almost a parody, with Thorin a three-quarter-scale Isildur.
Does Jackson think audiences will watch only one of the trilogies? If some element is present in one, why duplicate it in the other? Chandeliers and moths - really?
Azog (does the name mean "little Sauron rip-off"?) is a recurring mistake throughout. Many of the iconic scenes from the novel are spoiled by this CGI construct, a sort of recombinant (WO)Khan/Ahab/Moby-Dick chimera. Why does this character exist? The Company does not need pursuit or a lurking enemy: it's is GOING to the Lonely Mountain, and will encounter plenty of obstacles to keep up the suspense.
Roast Mutton is hurried and under-acted as a result. The entrance to Rivendell recreates the Race to the Ford with Azog in the place of the pursuing Wraiths. I like the inclusion of Radagast, but here is another timewaster, with the brown wizard distracting the pursuing orcs, with every tedious element of a video game cut scene. The main characters stand idly by, waiting with the audience for it to end, so play can resume. Fortunately, the DVD release will allow us to skip the scene.
Then Rivendell, like Hobbitton, somehow larger and more elaborate, but curiously empty of inhabitants and stage business. Weaving, despite rumors that the elves would be jollier, looking more glum and fretful even than in LOTR, when there should be a knowing twinkle in his eye. La-la-la-lally, indeed...
Happiest moment was the Storm Giant battle, which might have wound up on the cutting room floor along with Tom Bombadil for all the difference it makes to the plot. Still, it's marred by referencing the collapsing stairs of Moria. And not enough lightning.
The goblins should still be isolated in the Misty Mountains, jealous of their borders, not yet under thrall to Sauron. Instead, they seem to have direct communication with other baddies. Humphries' Great Goblin sounds about halfway between Bruce and Dame Edna, a little too sarcastic, and not quite suspiciously enraged. The Great Goblin diminishes his own terrifying status by threatening to...turn them over to Azog. You've got to be joking!
With so much material added from outside the text of the Hobbit novel proper, how can the result be so unoriginal? In the novel, we get the sense of Bilbo slogging along, not really comprehending the magnitude of the journey. But the reader gets a sense of a vast, unknown world around him. Not in this film. Like Lucas before him, Jackson has created a prequel which diminishes the scope of the original, rather than augmenting it. Middle Earth grows smaller with each recreated set.
That this film, with its enormous budget and gifted pool of talent and technology, fails to supersede the humble Rankin-Bass animated production, is the most damning comment I can make. I liked, not loved, it.