The cinematic equivalent of watching a dog dragging its butt along the carpet

Rating: 5/10 (10 October 2013)

While I loved Jackson's LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy, I'm sorry to say that he's fumbled - nay, dropped - the ball with this prequel, the first of a three-film adaptation of Tolkien's earlier children's book, THE HOBBIT. AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY is the cinematic equivalent of watching a dog dragging its butt along the carpet - funny at first, but once the novelty wears off it quickly becomes tiresome.
The thing that kills the movie is Jackson's hubris, which has been in evidence ever since he finished work on RETURN OF THE KING. The sad truth is that he hasn't made a good film since; KING KONG was, like this, overlong and silly, while THE LOVELY BONES had potential but was sappy and effects-laden. Jackson's ego is so huge that he indulges every whim, every lowbrow, snot-laden gag with nary an editor in sight. It's like attempting to read the sleep-inducing later Harry Potter books by J. K. Rowling.
THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY has certain appealing qualities, and times when it favourably recalls the glory days of RINGS, but they are few and far between. The best scene is, of course, the one most faithful to the book, the finding of the ring with Gollum. In fact, there's half a good film in here, and that half consists of all the scenes taken from the story. Unfortunately, the rest is added in, padded in, CGI nonsense with one interminable action scene after the next, sloppily written and entirely predictable throughout. It's a huge, atmospheric fantasy world reduced to the level of a mindless computer game. Jackson must be blind.
Of course, I wanted to like this. The team have assembled a great cast, with Martin Freeman fitting the lead role like a glove and Richard Armitage changing neatly from TV fare to movie epic, although other actors fare less well. It becomes highly apparent that Ian McKellen's Gandalf is here merely to drive the plot forward, despite Jackson's best efforts to give him extra gravitas and meaning.
Sadly, this movie's muted appeal and incessant nonsense has meant that I'm not looking forward to the next two films in the trilogy, given that they appear to contain equal amounts of mindlessness. What a pity - Jackson clearly has creative genius within him, but his best work seems further and further away.