Bilbo Lost His Way

Rating: 6/10 (1 January 2014)

Okay, I know that there are 2 sides to every movie based on a book; the die hard fans of the book who never approves of the movie and the people who are just fans of the movie. I for once, is very much a fan of both the books and the movies. I think for this movie it's best to just remove the book out of the equation. Instead of comparing it to the book, I'll compare it to the previous movie, The Hobbit: The Unexpected Journey which I think was brilliant.
When I went to the cinema, I didn't have much expectations except the fact that I was prepared to enjoy a movie I was waiting to see for awhile. I came out of the cinema feeling a little disappointed that it was just an OK film. I couldn't say I enjoy it as much and I couldn't say that I didn't like it. It is one of those movies that just seems to float somewhere in between. As a movie in itself it was probably not that bad, but comparing it to the first movie, it did fall a little short. Looking back at the story line, it felt a little draggy and there were some unnecessary plot lines such as the love triangle between the elves and the dwarf. Noted, that the reason that was put in is that so there would be a strong female role. Thinking in that line, even though to me it tip on the ridiculous side at times, it was probably necessary for the general masses to not only create some lightness to the movie but also to give more weight to the plot. Without it, the second movie would just be about a hobbit and a horde of dwarfs walking.
There were times however when things felt a little too forced, such as the dialogue, the jokes and even the graphics. In this case, Peter Jackson wanted to show off some cool graphic stunts. So instead of using the CGI as a tool to help translate the movie, there were scenes that was created in order to show off or written to fit the CGI. There were times that the graphics looked too animated to my taste. It didn't look real anymore and I felt like i was watching a 3D animated film. The specific scene I'm talking about is the barrels in the river. It's suppose to add some action into the movie but the whole point is to make it look believable and not animated.
I mean, we all know Peter Jackson is a very passionate man and only serves to bring the books to justice, but he can do better than this. The first one was great, the second one was a hiccup and we can only hope that the third one will close the series with a bang.