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Saw it last night, standard 2D version. I haven’t read the book in probably 20+ years so my memory of the specifics was dim but a lot of it felt a bit too familiar. I don’t know but I think there was probably too much effort and time spent on integrating the stories and winking to fans and those familiar with the setting. On the one hand, it was nice to see Frodo again, but on the other, it took a long time to get the movie going.

I would have to agree that, so far, there is too much movie for how much story has been told. Of course, if they decided to make 3 movies and then had to find logical places to cut the book into thirds, I guess there are limited spots to do that but I certainly wouldn’t have complained if about 20-30 minutes had been left for the inevitable extended edition.

No particular scene felt useless to me (other than maybe the rock giants battle) but many could certainly have been tightened up a lot. I think Peter Jackson suffers from the same malady that a lot of directors have as they become more successful and sure of themselves. They lose the ability to cut out the fat in their movies.

I think that especially in a book to film transition, you have to be careful not to be too slavish to the source material in its depth and breadth. Sure, you have to meet fan expectations and cover the important stuff, at least with a cursory nod, but a book can be allowed to be a bit languid and flourishing (because a reader is free to put a book down and come back to it later or skip a page or two) where a movie (at least in a theater) can’t afford a viewer that luxury.

Anyway, when the movie was on, I loved it. And it was on more than it was off, but overall I left feeling like there should have been at most 2 movies planned for the translation to screen (this is set to be another trilogy). Some cool stuff might have gotten the axe with only 2 movies, but I think it would have produced 2 really great movies. As it is, one pretty good movie is here now, and 2 more will probably follow, but they will be flawed and bloated. Hopefully they do at least as well or better than this and don’t fall any deeper into an overindulgent mire of excess detail and exposition.

Ironically, I think that one of the movie’s biggest faults (and LOTR had the same problem to a degree) is that, as much as it wastes time on expounding details, it falls short on actually exploring some of the characters. A lot of characters are basically just there to waggle swords and stand around shouting in the background. That is probably a failing of the original story too so I am not sure what could be done to improve it, but it still bothers me.

I’ll echo other reviews that Bilbo is very well acted by Martin Freeman. He needs more great roles in the future (be sure to enjoy his skill as Watson in the BBC series Sherlock). Andy Serkis is wonderfully creepy/fun as Gollum/Smeagol, and Ian McKellan is a perfect Gandalf as expected.

One scene that was really superbly acted was the Riddles in the Dark scene between Bilbo and Gollum/Smeagol. It was extremely well done but it does have one failing: It was too well lit during the whole scene. As much as I hate it when movies are overly dark and dim in an effort to induce a style or feeling, this was a setting where it was appropriate and accurate for it to be crushingly dark. Of course, having it be pitch black with just a pair of floating eyes might be too much and would probably be comical after a point, but it should at least start out that way or have some of the scene set that way. I imagined it as being almost pitch black in most of the scene with occasional areas where some light penetrated down from above and, of course, the light from Sting.

Now that I think back, the movie might have a few places where the ‘flatness’ of light bothered me. That probably has to do with the huge use of CGI for both characters, and sets. Letting your CGI artists do an entire scene probably tends to result in ‘lazy’ output, cinematically speaking, since they have to do more work to make anything different or complex. With actual physical location shooting you get a huge variance and complexity of lighting by default. In a digital world, you have to create all that. Pretty much everywhere in the caves and under the mountains feels kind of fake because the lighting is so consistent. Even though it is all torch light, it’s more like being in a modern football stadium with a huge set of lights overhead, no flicker or dark areas, no tone or shade changes.

I was invited to the movie by a couple of new friends in my neighborhood and one of them mentioned a few times through the movie that something about the big fat goblin under the Misty Mountains was bugging her. Finally after the movie she explained that she was sure she recognized his voice from somewhere. Turns out it was Barry Humphries who she remembered from his voicing of Bruce from Finding Nemo. After hearing the name, I remembered him as Dame Edna.

So overall, I would say I enjoyed the movie. On a rating scale of ‘Wilted Lettuce’ to ‘Home Made Ice Cream and Warm Cookies’, I would give it a solid ‘Cold Pizza on a Saturday Morning’. In other words, it was good but not amazing. It has some pretty obvious flaws but a solid core of enjoyable material and nothing that makes it too frustrating to watch again, or forgettable. I would say that it is pretty reasonable for kids to watch as well. The violence is toned down a bit from the Lord of the Rings movies and there is more humor. It is long (over 2.5 hours) so it will be a tough movie for kids to enjoy in the theater but I would say it is good for kids who enjoy fantasy type stuff from age 9 or so and up.