Neither fish nor fowl

Rating: 5/10 (31 December 2012)

The Hobbit tries hard, and a lot of the time gets it perfectly right. Character scenes translate well from the book, Middle Earth is presented beautifully, and Bilbo is great. I was expecting a wonderful film based on the early scenes. I'm not a fan of the book, reading it after LOTR as a teen I found it too cute and childish, but the beginning felt like it would be suitable for the book's target audience. However, The Hobbit is half cute character-driven story, and half CGI rampage.
Where it went wrong for me was in the loooong battle scenes and manufactured peril. Watching the battles, I could imagine a group of screenwriters and CGI chaps standing around a whiteboard egging each other on: "And then, what if everyone ...." "Hey yeah! But I reckon it could be bigger than that! More monsters! More rickety bridges over ravines poised to collapse!" I started to fall asleep during one of the more tediously long scenes - just shut my eyes for a bit until plot existed again and didn't really want to open them again.
The various perilous things that happen to Our Heroes worried me, because a lot just wouldn't have been survivable - each time someone ought to have died I was pulled out of my suspension of disbelief.
I'd love to see a director's cut without 80% of the battle scenes - that would be a great movie.