Entertaining, but not a classic

Rating: 7/10 (16 December 2012)

I went the day it was released to watch it at 12.30pm to a virtually empty cinema - which was nice.
Overall I did find it entertaining but it differed quite a lot from the book and overall I thought it was a weaker effort than any of the 3 of The Lord of the Rings films that preceded it.
I found the film to be very frenetic and many of the scenes "over the top". I also did not like many of the differences from the book. I think the strength of The Lord Of The Rings films was that is stayed close to the book. It's been nearly 2 decades since I read The Hobbit but even now I can think of at least a dozen changes.
The main one that I disliked was the introduction of yet another "super orc" - similar to the one that killed Boromir in The Lord Of The Rings. A large amount of the plot in this first film revolved around this character that does not exist at all in the book!
Another thing I disliked was that some of the dwarfs are completely anonymous. I kid you not when I say one of them had maybe 5 lines in the whole of the nearly 3 hour film. I think a slower paced film with more focus on the characterisation would have made this a much better film.
I thought the Goblin sequence was fairly poor - again too fast and ridiculous in places.
As for what I liked - the scenery was superb as were the special effects. Many of the scenes were also entertaining even if they were slightly different to what happened in the book.
I am confident the forth coming films will improve.
It's a decent film and probably one you will find entertaining, but it's not a great film.
If you have read the books and are expecting a close rendition of it you are likely to be disappointed.
I'd say this film is to The Hobbit as Troy was to The Iliad.