It’s astonishing to me that this never looks nearly as good as Peter Jackson’s THE LORD OF THE RINGS films which were made over twenty years ago and, adjusted for inflation, with each film costing roughly the same as this. The scene with Bradley Cooper’s halfling uses such obvious green screen compositing and digital backgrounds that it looks terrible compared to the physical forced perspective used in the Bag End scenes between Bilbo and Gandalf at the very start of THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING.
Overall I found this more irritating than charming, tied to a dated and tired framework for action genre blockbusters exemplified by the final confrontation just straight-up recycling a gag from the end of 2012’s THE AVENGERS. I honestly felt like I’d be more engaged just reading the Player’s Handbook.