I know I'm reviewing this movie a month late, but better late than never.
Most people have read Tolkien's 1937 fantasy novel The Hobbit, but for those of you that haven't I'll briefly summarize the parts of the novel that this film covers.
Bilbo Baggins is a Hobbit living quietly in the Shire, until one day he is visited by the wizard Gandalf, who used to visit the Shire when Bilbo was a boy and is known for his particularly spectacular fireworks. He invites Mr. Baggins to go with him on an adventure to recover a lost Dwarven fortress from the infamous dragon Smaug, but at first Bilbo refuses, as Hobbits are uncomfortable going on adventures or doing unexpected things. After being visited by the thirteen dwarves that are also sharing in the quest, he is convinced to go with them.
The movie, for the most part, does a good job of keeping this part of the story in line, but has some major differences in the additional parts of the movie that were not found in the novel but in the appendices for Lord of the Rings, but I'll get to that later.
The biggest thing that critics hated was that it was a slow movie that was also too long, at two and a half hours. While I can see the reasons behind their complaints, I am inclined to disagree with them. The problem was not in how slow the movie was, but rather the balance between action and the slower parts. One of the biggest issues I had with the movie was that the slow parts are VERY long, and they drag on for a long time, but the action scenes are also very long, and they begin to get tedious toward the end of the movie.
Another thing that critics had a problem with was that there was very little character development, but this is because Peter Jackson is only drawing from material found in the first six chapters of the book. He's only using material from less than a third of the book, so it is understandable that the character development was hard to see if not scant.
Honestly the biggest problem I had with this movie was that it had a hard time finding the balance between the comical and the serious. The novel of The Hobbit tends to have a very comical, ridiculous tone, while its successor The Lord of the Rings is very dark and serious, and the appendices found in the back of The Return of the King describe events that occurred at the same time as the Hobbit that had the same tone that LotR did. So Peter Jackson has to find a balance between the two, and he often comes short of success, particularly in the action scenes that involve fighting. While he made an active effort, there were some times in the film where he tried too hard, making the film suffer as a result.
So what do I rate the film? Out of ten stars, I'd give it a seven. That's 3.5/5 stars or 2.75/4 stars. It was still a fairly entertaining movie, and despite some of the major differences it has with the timeline it still follows the actual novel very well. Thorin and Bilbo have particularly good acting, and Gandalf and Gollum are fantastic as they were in the Trilogy. Tolkien fans will like the movie, and while the hardcore fans like me will probably grumble, they'll still like it. Recommended to anyone who enjoys fantasy. If you don't, then this is about as far into the fantasy genre as you can get.
Expect a rant about the differences between book and movie soon, and believe me, there will be one.
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