Overextended eye-candy

Rating: 8/10 (5 January 2014)

Peter Jackson continues smearing the 'Hobbit' out over another 2 hour and 41 minute sandwich. There is just not enough happening, they linger to long on nonessential scenes, there is too much dialogue without adding much content. It feels a bit like the Star Wars prequels: it's made by the same skillful people but it's just not as good as the original, there's something missing. What the film is very good at is serving up pure eye-candy. The attention to detail in the costumes, props, sets and VFX is mind-boggling. Howard Shore again provides the score but besides hints of the LOTR theme it's just not that memorable. If you've seen the other LOTR films you're not gonna skip this one so I don't need to convince anyone I guess. I just hope they don't make an extended version for the Blu Ray because this one already feels overextended as it is...