Preview for a Video Game?

Rating: 4/10 (23 December 2013)

It's hard to criticize a classic that fans are ready to love when it comes to the screen. So, I approached reviewing this film with caution until I actually saw it; I am not reviewing a film that is faithful to the book.
Beautiful scenery and effects abound from start to finish. Acting had outstanding moments. McKellen and Freeman were credible and incredible in monologue, dialogue, or among a crowd. Ken Stott stole scenes and Lilly played well in contrast to any elf-in-charge. Nevertheless, it was hard to overlay the book onto many film scenes. Gone were poignant moments of literary worth, such as irony, copious comic relief, or lines meant to have readers think and reflect before moving on. Dwarfs became humorous "barrelriders," but only as "fish-in-a-barrel" to a trained army that could not hit "the broad side of a barn" (how I love to mix metaphors!).
Instead, this viewer found that much of the story line could have been produced by a child on a video game instead of an accomplished author. Violence was gratuitous and it was predictable who was going to survive battles and who would be slaughtered. Without being a spoiler, only one major character is wounded and merely to set up a moment of miraculous healing by another character and scene that I cannot remember came from the novel directly.
This site denotes that The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug is PG-13. From what I saw with my preteen not present, I would suggest changing that rating to "M" to be consistent with video-game ratings. After all, I spent a considerable portion of the 161 minutes wondering whether the movie was created with or for the xBox One or PS4. Otherwise, I can envision the film preparing the world for a Hobbit line of video games to come in time for Christmas 2014.