Holy crap, but somebody say "NO" to Peter Jackson

Finally sat down to try to watch The Hobbit.

Twenty-five minutes into it, we're still in Bilbo's fucking house, and the dwarves have done one song-and-dance routine, complete with bouncy jigs, and have just finished singing some pirate shanty that at least was moderately plot-related.

Digging Martin Freeman, always a pleasure to see Ian McKellan in the gray robes, but these dwarves are not doing it for me, no matter how much they try to turn the leader into an Aragorn-esque heartthrob. And what's up with the one supposed dwarf dude who has no makeup on whatsoever?

That, my friend, is not a dwarf. That's one of Bodhi's crew from Point Break. Completely jarring compared to the giant proboscis (and beard) they put on this fine fellow:

Fifty-two minutes into it, it's time to turn the damn thing off after Gandalf stares into the distance reminiscing about Radagast the Brown and suddenly we cut to some dude (again, more dwarf-like than surfer boy up there, but he's apparently some kind of wizard) with bird shit on his head trying to resuscitate hedgehogs. I do not have three hours of my life to give to this movie.

This is all said as someone who's watched the extended versions of the LOTR trilogy more than once. But since the multi-ending fiasco that was (admittedly, pretty deserved and mostly worth the wait) the last 20 minutes or so of Return of the King, I've found PJ's output since pretty much unwatchable. He's blinded by his love of the source material -- and maybe the financial benefit of splitting one children's book into three giant movies (which is ironic, considering that one of the eight-minute prologue pieces in the first Hobbit flick is about the dangerous sickness that comes along with hording gold) -- and obviously no one has the cojones to tell him that he needs to cut some of this bullshit out. Nor, based on the box office for the first, and the promise that the second will actually, you know, feature a dragon, will anybody step up anytime soon.

But I think I'm done with the Jackson until he delivers something under 120 minutes in a single shot. In fact, I'll promise right now to purchase The Hobbit: Condensed Version if WB decides to release it.