The Hobbit takes the safe road to meet audience expectations.

Rating: 8/10 (15 December 2012)

Finally, after waiting 9 years since the Lord of the Rings trilogy ended, I got to revisit Middle Earth for a few hours. We went to the 10:20pm showing, arriving a little later to get good seats. So I spent 2 hr., 46 min. craning my neck up and trying to absorb the plethora of visual effects before me. And Peter Jackson and the Weta team delivered.
When I go to a highly anticipated movie (esp. one based on a classic book), I tend to build up so many high expectations that I'm always a little disappointed the first time watching. (I drop the comparison game and my own perceptions do not cloud the subsequent viewings). Peter Jackson did a good job re-creating Middle Earth, and the art direction is seamless with the LOTR trilogy. Yes, it's slightly jarring to see Bilbo and Frodo played by slightly older versions of themselves, but their performances remained true. Gandalf, played by Ian McKellan, got away a bit more with the age difference under the heavy makeup and wizard's cap. :)
The movie is pretty slow-paced for the first hour, just as Fellowship was, as it re-establishes the shire and introduces the cast of dwarfs. I wasn't sure if having so many characters would work, but it did. The dwarfs were well-casted and not just a mish-mash of slightly different characteristics. You felt they were "real", just like Gimli. :) In fact, it looks like some of them took some acting points or were coached by John Rhys-Davis! But once everyone is introduced, the group dynamic works well and the movie begins to hum with energy and comic relief.
I enjoyed the eye candy of visiting new places in Middle Earth, and seeing the back stories played out, such as The King Under the Mountain who possessed riches untold and the early accounts of Smaug's terror and destruction. The Gollum scenes were well-played, bringing the most laughs and meeting expectations for such an iconic moment in the book. The plot moved along as one might expect for the first act of this manufactured trilogy.
The film team had the daunting task of staying true to Tolkien's mythology, but providing something fresh that would meet audience expectations. The movie was a bit formulaic, as it tried to provide seamless cohesion to the previous films. Yes, it hit the marks and pacing of Fellowship, but in some ways, it seemed too safe. To hearken back to the trilogy, certain lines were simply repeated from previous films, which had the effect of adding staleness instead of warm feelings of re-connecting with beloved characters. And perhaps for the returning actors playing their established characters in the LOTR trilogy, this was their primary challenge. I remember Andy Serkis, who played Gollum, shared his struggle with Peter on the first day of shooting the cave scenes. He was concerned he was playing a parody of Gollum and he had to push past the impersonation to find the character again after so many years. (I'm sure both Ian's, Cate, Hugo, and Elijah felt the same way.)
My only disappointment is perhaps with Martin Freeman, who plays the lead of young Bilbo. I didn't feel he had the charisma and charm of Ian Holmes' portrayal of old Bilbo. At times, esp. in the earlier scenes, his performance even seemed a bit clumsy. Maybe he will shine more in the rest of the movies now that they've laid out the quest objectives in the first act.
Overall, I still think this is worthy to watch again. (Perhaps this time in 3-D).