I know I'm coming late to this conversation, having just now seen "The Hobbit" in theaters.  A fan of the book, I was cautiously optimistic.  Alas, I should have stayed home in my own hobbit hole and read the book again instead.

The book, "The Hobbit" is fun to read because a lot of things happen very fast.  It's a rollicking adventure story where Tolkein does not linger or ponder too much, but tells us just enough to enjoy the moment and then….on we go!  Imagine if the movie, "The Hobbit," had been ONE film that lasted about two hours.  It could have rivaled "Indiana Jones" for fast paced thrilling adventure!  Bam: trolls, then spiders, a giant bear, saved by eagles, attacked by orcs, found a ring, ride in barrels, saved the day…. You get the idea.

Instead, the Hollywood greed machine pads the story with boring tangents—no doubt thrilling to the big fan, but not so interesting to the rest of us.  Long artistic shots of worried faces, pondering what it all might mean.  It seemed to take Cate Blanchett several minutes just to turn poetically to face us, no doubt struggling to pull herself away from the lovely view from the clif she was lingering over.  I just kept thinking, "Bring on the adventure already!"

The movie is gorgeously filmed and executed, and has made almost a billion at the global box office, so it's not all bad.  I just feel a sense of disppointment of "what might have been" if someone had decided to stay true to the tone and spirit of Tolkein's original masterpiece.  Ah…that's an adventure I could have loved!