Reading the book would take less of your time

Rating: 1/10 (7 June 2015)

Over long, dull and drawing too little of the charm and greatness of the source material, this bloated, stick-dry interpretation of Tolkien's beautiful story lacks any of the emotional resonance that would make it worth watching. We had to go back and watch Lord of the Rings again just to reassure ourselves that we hadn't been mistaken about the majesty of Jackson's previous foray into Middle Earth. The characters do a lot of talking, but say very little. The action has noise, but you never see the sense of it.
The addition of extra characters wasn't the deal breaker for me, though I didn't feel they brought anything particularly interesting to the story. I watched 2 out of the 3 movies made from the slender children's book, was thoroughly annoyed by them, and look forward to the day that some clever film student makes a single-film master-cut, though I lament that so little of the entertaining dialogue from the novel made it onto the screen in the first place.
I am upset to give this movie, and indeed the trio of movies (one of which I didn't even bother to watch) such a low rating. I had high hopes, and was terribly disappointed.