OK but needed a stronger editor

Rating: 6/10 (18 December 2012)

On the plus side my 8yr old and 11yr old absolutely loved it. 11yr old said it was better than Harry P, which is praise indeed as he is an HP nut. For me as a 40-something Tolkien and PJ fan (who loved the LOTR films) I think the critics have it about right.
Much of the vitriol directed against the critics by the PJ fan club seems to lack any kind of objectivity. Falling along the lines of "the critics don't know what they are talking about" or "they are jumping on the band wagon" etc. Many of the critical reviews I have read are actually quite considered pieces of journalism.
For me it was 3 out of 5. The riddle scene was fantastic cinema/theatre - Serkis was amazing. Throughout I thought Freeman did a much better job than I expected (I always felt he was too "knowing" an actor to play Bilbo with the right amount of naivety but he proved me wrong).
However the first half or so of the film suffered from dreadful pacing, the scenes at Bag End dragged forever. I was not the only Dad in the auditorium looking at his watch. For me Azog was an unnecessary distraction seemingly designed to lift the film from a younger children's adventure to appeal to the impressionable and immature teen market and at the same time somehow recreate the threat of the chase that the Black Riders delivered in LOTR . On many levels PJ seemed to be trying to create a LOTR-lite rather than The Hobbit.
The CGI was obviously CGI and at times it was like watching a computer game, which made trying to engage on an emotional level quite difficult. The Goblin King looked like he had walked out of a Muppets Christmas special. Why oh why did they not stick to using real actors for the Orcs/goblins? The ones in LOTR were much more realistic / believable and therefore terrifying than the CGI versions in AUJ (any defence that it was not to scare the children is undermined by the inclusion of a character as repellent as Azog).
**SPOILER** The "fall" of Thorin at the end was a very contrived and unsubtle attempt to try and elicit a similar sort of emotional response from the audience that we saw in LOTR when Gandalf fell in Moria. It did not work for me, partly because Thorin's character was not as established as Gandalf's and partly because such a manufactured piece of audience manipulation left me cold.
It did have its moments and all in all I would say it was "ok". Would have benefited from a stronger editor. But my boys loved it, so what do I know.