I didn't hate it

Rating: 3/10 (9 March 2015)

I've seen this movie and now I can say I was surprised a lot of times. I was surprised how good the CGI was and how well the orcs looked. I also had no issues with the newfangled camera and the resulting cinematography of this slightly mundane movie.
However, I, who have not been watching many movies recently, was laughingly stunned at how flabby Legolas's featured looked. It was quite distracting, with everyone involved pretending that Legolas looked about as same as in 2003. I'm looking at you Peter Jackson, casting directors, make up artists.
Bilbo aka Martin Freeman made a good impression whenever he appeared. His acting was as if a famous painter had made a paint by numbers job. You can only work with what you're given and I wonder whether Martin was thinking how wrong a direction this Hollywood film was taking and how many of his roles in English, small budget movies were better than this sleepwalker's dream career booster. His tics and mannerisms were too put on and repetitive to escape notice, if not criticism. Despite everything, I think some thought had gone into the Hobbit's role and Martin appeared with enough regularity for me not to understand the protests against him being underused.
The dwarfs had their moments. The best of the actors was Balin, whose one scene with Bilbo was better than even the capable Richard Armitage. The unexplained - but explainable - use of Elvish, and Orcish dialects provided a few funny moments, and to me, served little purpose. Galadriel's draining clash with Sauron smacked of the ridiculous.
Now I'm going to take a leaf out of Peter Jackson's book(not Tolkien's) and finish quickly without rounding on all the aspects. Bard and his people(and Alfrid) were cut off from the movie abruptly. There was no focus on the distribution of the treasure. Kili and Tauriel romance deserved one eye-roll or ten. That's about it.
PS - For the first time in my life I'm finding reviewing movies not only fun but also easy. Much quicker and easier than reviewing books, where one really has to put one's memory to work. I'll think about possibly reviewing regularly. I thank whoever found my review useful. Cheers.