The Hobbit Review

We've got ourselves an early Christmas treat with the live-action movie debut movie J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit finally coming to theatres and bringing a movie that will likely be winning the Academy's favour in a few months time.

For those who passed up the Lord of the Rings film series (shame on you!) the story takes place in Middle-earth where a Hobbit named Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman) is swept up from his comfortable day-to-day ordinary life into a world of adventure by a group of dwarves and the wizard Gandalf the Grey (Sir Ian McKellen). Their mission? To take back the dwarf homeland of Erebor, built in the heart of the Lonely Mountain, which was conquered by the terrible dragon Smaug. The road is a long one, full of terrible foes and magical forces of both dark and light winding up on their journey. But its also a discovery of the hero inside, as Bilbo comes to understand a life beyond his own home and learns of the bigger world he lives in. 

Peter Jackson returns as director of this prequel franchise, showing a new visual side to the Middle-Earth we remember while still bringing in familiar characters in the actors who portrayed them. But this also proves to be his Achilles heel. 

Fan service to the audience is very over-indulgent at times during the plot, leading us to many flashbacks to backstory that really could have been summed up fairly quickly. It detracts the main events too often and therefore becomes no wonder that this has turned into a three-part series, based off one single book. 

The atmosphere well known from the Lord of the Rings movies has also changed visually. Its more colourful and fantastic as opposed to the more natural and subtle world we were used to. This makes the movie much more of a fairy tale dragon-killer story then your epic war series that the fans will remember. Its also going to divide the fan base who will be walking out of the movie with their expectations either satisfied or unfulfilled. 

But all is not in vain if you're willing to take the movie for what it is. If you can stomach some padded story pacing, then you'll love the new creatures which have a welcomed Guillermo del Toro touch to them. Our fearless dwarf leader Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitage) is also a pleasure to follow, seeing how far he's willing to go for his vengeance. But don't bother trying to keep track of his dwarf brothers. Barely one of them has much character and you'll be lucky if you can remember a single name. Thankfully Jackson was merciful in making many of them look as different as possible. You'll just have to settle for differentiating between beards as oppose to faces.