The Lovely Bones is the only bad movie he's made, completely misses the point of the book. King Kong is good but the stuff on the island is way too over the top and extended compared to the original film.
The whole point of the project was to expand on the original film. I can't fault him for doing what he intended to do.
The Hobbit probably should have been two movies, but then, if you're a WB exec, and Jackson suggests making a third one for comparatively little cost, thereby securing your grandkids' college tuitions, are you really gonna tell him to rein it in? Also, this is a kind of unique situation in that the studio can make as many Hobbit and LotR movies as they like, but nothing beyond that, at least until Christopher Tolkien passes, but probably forever. So it's not a situation where they stand to lose future box office returns by tanking the brand. (It's hardly a coincidence, I think, that we'll likely finally be getting a getting a Warcraft movie the year after the Middle-Earth film series ends.) That said, I don't think Jackson's doing a third Hobbit movie for the money. There's a bit in a Production Diary where they mention the rock giants sequence, and Jackson says something along the lines of "it was only a throaway detail in the book, but I know the kids'd be upset if we didn't make a big show of it!" Which... no, dude, no one would have minded if that battle was just something the group observed in the distance for a few moments before moving on. But hey, he's having fun, and so am I, so I don't much feel like grousing...
No, I don't think he's overrated. I quite enjoyed LotR and King Kong. I'm not sure Hobbit was meant to be three films, but I think Jackson's a better choice to try than many others.
He's not overrated, no. Outside of LotR talk, I don't hear him discussed much so he doesn't really seem to be rated either way. Someone who is overrated is a director who is talked about all the time, such as Spielberg (IMO, of course), when their talent doesn't live up to the hype.
In my view, if The Fellowship Of The Ring isn't a timeless classic then there's no such thing as a timeless classic. The Two Towers was brilliant (still is!) and The Return Of The King is comparable in quality to the first movie. I don't think any other movie project before or since has displayed the same level of detail or concerted effort as the LOTR trilogy. Kong was very long (I won't say overlong) but nonetheless brilliant in its own way, and has an ending to outdo even the original (another timeless classic). I watched both movies consecutively with my two young nieces a few weeks ago, starting with the Jackson one. The Lovely Bones was a perfectly good movie. I think people mark it down a bit because it's no LOTR, but then it's simply not the same kind of product. The Hobbit is a very experimental film and although it's all but thoroughly entertaining, as a Middle Earth movie it's in illustrious company. The bar was in the stratosphere. Still, it managed to be a major highlight of last year, and some would say the best genre movie. I think it's entirely feasible that parts two and three will be worthy of the OT. So that's a "No" from me.
I've found everything he's done post LOTR to be rather mediocre. Not awful-bad or anything, just middling and unremarkable and bloated. That applies to King Kong, Lovely Bones, and The Hobbit.
No. Yeah, sometimes he's not great - but he's not great at stuff that no one else has proven they can do at all.
While he can generate a lot of revenue, just like Sam Raimi he's at his best when they don't throw a ton of money at him but he has to get the most out of a limited budget (Jackson: Heavenly Creatures; Raimi: Evil Dead series).
I do have an issue with the length of Kong, but I also rather like the film, I think its length cost it half a star in quality. As for his real epic films, the funny thing is if he was doing a miniseries or a season adaption of a book or book series (like Game of Thrones), I think his style would be perfect. He is very open that he likes long films, and unfortunately for him, film audience don't respond in general to the idea of fleshing out books in film. But people have no real issue with books getting the full treatment in long form on tv. Look at the Hobbit, there is only a few minutes that I would actually cut from the film, my biggest issue with the Hobbit wasn't it's length, but the fakeness of the action sequences in Goblin town. OUt of all the material I have seen of Jackson, (I didn't watch any of his horror flicks) the only one I disliked was the Lovely Bones. He's done four films I loved, and two more to date that I really liked that have flaws. That's hardly a bad record. Especially since on all of these he plays triple duty as producer/ writer/ and director.
Well to be fair I actually agree there's less interest in the people I know about The Hobbit too and I think a lot of that is to do with the split over 3 films thing,