Reviews

I've rarely hated a main character as much. But I kept watching. A movie that doesn't know what it wants to be, and so remains unsatisfactory on a literary level, and on a populist level.

Strangely muted performances from every actor - no one is bad, but no one is good either. Motivations are completely unrealised for Mirren's character, and a bit too cartoonish for Ford's. Phoenix simply isn't given anything to do.

The script avoids important basics - where is all the money coming from? Why do natives speak English? Why do the natives work for Ford? Why is there no reflection on the deaths (murders) of the three mercenaries? The film is decidedly broken, but I watched the whole thing and found myself thinking about it later. And so a score right down the middle - 5/10.

Complete and utter garbage.

Good --Freeman is the best thing in the film --the stone giants

Bad --the pacing --The soundtrack is a repeat of LOTR. --several main characters are pure CGI. --the dwarfs are not individual characters. --Thorin is a paste-board cliché. --Bilbo isn't the main character. --the pacing --Radagast is portrayed as an imbecile. --rabbits pulling sleighs (OMG this was dreadful). --"I've never been so wrong in all my life." --the hedgehog dying. --the giant spiders attacking the hovel, then simply walking away. --the pipeweed joke --did I mention the pacing? --Bilbo saving Thorin --etc etc

An okay little film. Awkward, a bit lost, but mostly moving forward. It's a simple idea that unfolds fairy well, although exactly what the "signs" are and the importance of "kevin" is are never fully realised.

Until the climax involving a car wreck, a submerged vehicle, and a rescue. A dull and idiotic ending to an otherwise okay movie. If the writers had come up with something better for the end, probably a 6/10.

Decent acting from the cast.

Oh, and if you're going to be quirky do you have to still be didactic? We get it - family is important. Love one another.

Such writing is kinda dull, guys. And you'd done a good job for 60 minutes of avoiding dull. Close, but no cigar.

After a sloppy, meandering, beginning the film tightens through the mid section quite nicely. Everything becomes uneasy and you start second- guessing everything. Good.

Then the first major shock scene occurs and the film falls apart entirely. It's a schlock fest. One assumes that is because of the lack of credible script, but really it's more the fault of the stupid characters.

And the sheer idiocy of the finale beggars belief. Several un-named characters drive one spaceship into another. When it happens you'll be like "Pass me the doritos." YAWN.

A dull, strangely lost script destroys a film that had a lot of potential. Obvious twists with characters adds to the laziness and general lack of imagination.

The film is worth seeing for the visual beauty - but don't tune in for the wooden and anonymous performances by Rapace and Theron. Not their fault - they had to play stupid characters in a stupid fest that ended in futility.