Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I had high hopes for this adaptation but within the first 10 minutes of episode one it was obvious something was very wrong. Even the opening scene was unpleasant, without context and dull. I would say that being dull is the overwhelming problem with the show but the unlikeable characters don't help matters. The lady who plays Galadriel is unsympathetic and one dimensional. At one point she kills a giant snow troll monster and seems bored and without expression the entire 30 seconds it takes her to dispatch it. When you don't care about the main character it is difficult to care about the rest of the show. Hobbits is this show look unkempt and have none of the warmth and charm that they possess in the books, previous films and animated films. Yes, this is a Tolkien film where even the Hobbits(called Harfoots in this production) are unlikeable. I couldn't find a single character in this show to root for or care about because every one of them had a strange undercurrent of meanness. There is NO plot to speak of and that makes the unlikeable characters very dull indeed. Events just seem to occur with no context and none of it really leads anywhere. Also unpleasant is the look of this show. It looks like a LOT of time was spent on the design but every bit of it has an artificial CGI look all over it. It is very detailed but it never looks like an authentic environment. The show resembles a pretty screensaver more than a film. The costumes are uninspired and frankly look generic, as though they were rented from a standard Hollywood costume and prop house. The music isn't bad sounding but there are no genuinely memorable themes in it as in previous Tolkien films (including the made for TV animated ones oddly enough). I think this is a devastatingly sad failure. I'm sure the actors and crew worked very hard on this show but something went drastically wrong here.