This is not "The Hobbit".

Rating: 2/10 (21 December 2013)

I am at a loss for words. I love everything Middle Earth, have read most everything Tolkien ever put into print. I absolutely adored the Lord of the Rings Trilogy that Jackson brought us a decade ago. There were some changes made to those movies which upset this purist, but I fully understand that the big screen requires conversions and tweaks here and there. There were some unnecessary additions but all in-all kept true to the story.
I was quite disappointed by "An Unexpected Journey" last year, but at the very least that move seemed to *resemble* the book. I was willing to overlook Jackson's liberal adaptation as a one-time fluke. I mean, this movie was a Peter Jackson film...certainly the changes were done out of necessity? Right? In retrospect I think Jackson anticipated this blind loyalty to turn a profit when he chose to re-write these stories.
"The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug" can only be considered the Tolkien tale in the most general of sense. The names of characters and places are the same, there was a forest (briefly) and some spiders, a mountain and a dragon, but the similarities to the tale we know and love end there. I feel lied to. The movie was entitled "The Hobbit", which is false advertising and if we were talking about any other product or service would carry legal implications for deceptive marketing.
This all being said, maybe I'm just mad because I'm a Tolkien purist, but maybe not. The movie wasn't even good as a movie by another name. The story was jumpy and disjointed, downright boring in places (30 minutes of Smaug flapping around inside the mountain, some scheme involving ineffective but hastily made bombs, and molten gold? What?) and CG effect quality that might have (barely) passed muster on a mid-day Sci Fi Channel feature.
I gave the movie a 2 out of 10 because I feel that the bulk of the acting was well done. Special kudos to Freeman, Nesbitt, and McKellan, but for some reason Legolas seemed paper-thin.
I saw all of the LotR movies and "An Unexpected Journey" at the midnight showing. Because of "An Unexpected Journey" I saw "The Desolation of Smaug" on opening weekend. Because of "The Desolation of Smaug" I might watch "There and Back Again" when I comes out on cable.
So I find myself right where I was ten years ago when the screen went dark on "Return of the King"...hoping that someday in the future someone will step up and make a movie version of "The Hobbit".