"big" CGI movie with technical issues, lack of central character

Rating: 5/10 (10 November 2014)

Peter Jackson, now referred to as "Sir Peter Jackson" initially didn't want to do the Hobbit story idea, but later proposed "the Hobbit" as a three picture story arc. Incidentally, at the first film opening he stated that he hadn't actually seen a finished edit of the picture and as people found out in following months, the movie was a massive disappointment compared to the New Line franchise he directed a decade earlier.
This sequel is intended to a be a return to form, but it's still a disappointing movie, largely for two reasons; firstly because Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh and the other main players here just don't seem to know who, or what the main character is about very much, and because they don't the audience doesn't feel terribly involved either. Bilbo Baggins, the central character, never feels pivotal to the story, doesn't feel either like a leader or a hero or even much like a pitiable victim in the movies numerous set pieces.
The second reason is because the film is fundamentally flawed in the way its produced and distributed. Audiences wearing grey 3D glasses lose color value, and an attempt to restore the proper luminance in 3D theaters led the film company to release the movie at twice the standard frame rate; as a result, makeup, costume detail, and background elements look obviously fake, instead of the magical, poetic sequences that made the original films such great entertainment.
The script feels like well-combed fan fiction, which suggests that, really, "the Hobbit" should have been one powerful, lyrical sort of movie that recreates the vibe from the original Lord of the Rings environment, and remains faithful to the source material. It feels a bit pointless explaining this but the idea of a dragon guarding gold under a mountain has been a staple of European folklore mythology long before Tolkien created 'the Hobbit'.
If you get to the end of this movie, as suggested in the trailers, the dragon is a massive and spectacular beast, but doesn't save this picture from the feeling that its illogical, over-padded and overproduced.
I guess the best you can say about the trilogy is that it actually got completed, despite the fact that it's clearly impossible to create a worthwhile product with zero pre-production schedule. The film system and the projects handlers are to blame for it's poor quality as much as Jackson's bloated ideas about "running length" . . .