Tolkien would be sad

Rating: 3/10 (13 December 2013)

First off, this movie can barely be called "The Hobbit." It is very loosely based on the book, and insignificant things are made into huge arcs of the story. I wont go into spoilers, but suffice to say, the second-third of the book is all out of order and great liberties are taken with plot and character development. The plot they do add is full of holes and inconsistencies. It is sad that they didn't trust the book on its own merit enough to give it any respect, filling it with endless fight scenes and way too much comedic relief.
Secondly, Peter Jackson "Jacksoned up" this movie even more than his previous works. Unnecessary, so-downright-ludicrous-that-it-is-not- even-funny things are added, like Legolas surfing on everything in existence, a dwarf becoming an unstoppable killing machine by wearing a barrel, attempting to burn a dragon with something heated with its own breath, the list is pretty much endless.
The CGI is just embarrassing. It looked like they worked very hard on some aspects, but others have almost no effort put into them, and it was really distracting.
I found myself mostly just too frustrated at the script, the lackluster visuals and camera work to really enjoy the good aspects of the movie. It is a shame that many people will never read the book because the movie was such a trainwreck.