Everything wrong with film in one endless CGI nightmare.

Rating: 1/10 (18 August 2014)

I would never normally watch a film of this genre, let alone review it, but I had a soft spot for the LOTR films (and the book of the Hobbit... never liked the LOTR books), and enjoyed the first Hobbit film. Well! This film is a perfect manifestation of why American (and I mean that in terms of the capitalism-inspired film factory rather than the nationality) cinema is risible and pathetic. Here's a list of why: 1) Awful CGI throughout. Not a single shot doesn't look like some sort of teenage boy's x-box wet dream. 2) Terrible, boring dialogue. I neither understood, nor cared about, what the hell anyone was talking about or the apparent "plot". 3) The film consists of: dwarfs run to a huge set piece and are besieged by CGI baddies, none of which are remotely original; dwarfs run to another massive set piece (all of which look like some sort of fantasy mini-golf world or look like they've been stolen from earlier films such as Pan's Labyrinth). 4) Pisspoor acting all round. Even Sir Ian is over-acting, probably trying to lend some sort of gravitas to this cash cow. 5) Crap music: couldn't be arsed to come up with anything new? 6) Whatever this new HFR thing is meant to be, it looks AWFUL. The heightened colours only serve to make everything look like plastic. This is expounded by the constant use throughout the film of the swirly filter akin to something from Photoshop. Zzzzzzz.
I actually gave up concentrating when someone said "Yeah, I told him to go..(something in Elvish... "get a real job" perhaps?). This reminded me of the "Game Over" line in one of the LOTR films: totally out of place and designed to make the film appeal to morons. STOP FUNDING THIS RUBBISH! Put the money to better use.