Weak and Disappointing

Rating: 5/10 (15 January 2013)

Peter Jackson directing another Middle Earth movie? I was pumped. My disappointment started almost immediately, and never recovered.
The story moves much more slowly that the 3 previous Middle Earth movies. It takes over 40 minutes just to assemble the characters and move them out of the Shire. Has my racial prejudice against dwarfs been exposed? I just couldn't care about them as much as I did the Fellowhip. Gandolf is still Gandolf, and Ian McKlellen is very fun to watch. Strider/Aragorn is replaced by a sulking dwarf king. I did not really care if he got his kingdom back or not. Frodo and Sam are replaced by Bilbo, who is harder to care about than the younger Hobbits. Even the villains are weaker; the White Orc and his wolf/lions can't compare to Sauron, the Nine and the Nazgul. Only the character of Gollum improves, as a much more three dimensional character.
The quest is weaker, the characters are hard to care about, the story moves slower and even the battle scenes drag on and on. I watched it twice, just to make sure. To make more sure, I watched the original 3 Fellowship movies again. The Hobbit comes up short. (Pardon the pun.) It's half the movie of the original(s), so I give it a 5.