I watched Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings movies when they came out- I thought they were pretty mediocre, both in comparison to the novels and judged strictly as fantasy-adventure movies. But they did occasionally have their moments, and even though they were far from good, they were at least not completely misconceived. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, the first in a Peter Jackson Hobbit trilogy, is another story altogether.

The Hobbit is a short, delightful little children’s book with a pretty simplistic story. It clearly didn’t need a nine-hour “movie,” but let’s set that aside for the moment. This wretched, initial Hobbit film manages to kill just about every last thing that was charming, fun, or interesting from the novel. It is profoundly joyless and profoundly uninteresting. It lumbers forward painfully, opening with endless (and needless) battle scenes where nameless and faceless beings are smashed, burned and pulverized, numbing the mind and inuring emotional disassociation from the story. The use of actual dialog from the book is done gracelessly, almost like it was a contractual obligation of some sort. Humor is nonexistent, each attempt more pitiful than the last. They made up a bunch of scenes not in the book, in order to fill out time, and they are all total crap, and hurt the story. Visually, the film is a video game. The dwarves are ridiculous looking clowns, Bilbo is a total bore, and Ian McKellen acts like he’s really had enough of all this shit.

Note to Peter Jackson: For the love of God, stop!