The Hobbit

Ok, well when I first heard they were making a hobbit movie I was absolutely thrilled. Growing up the Rankin/Bass Hobbit was probably my favorite movie, and I've read the book multiple times as both a child and an adult(it's probably the only book I've ever reread as a matter of fact). My enthusiasm was tempered when I heard they were turning this 300 page book in to 3, 3 hr movies. I mean the little horrible animated film.....that I love dearly...was like 1.5 hours and fairly well covered the whole book. Then I read more about how they were expanding the story adding the short stories from the appendices etc, sooooo I guess they could stretch it I just don't know. I will say I was pleasantly surprised, there were a lot of things that I just didn't care for, it did have a tendency to drag and be a little ridiculous on occasion but in the end I thought most of the changes were made for the right reasons.

So the movie starts off the day of Bilbo's party, essentially it's the beginning of LOTR(Lord of the Rings). Bilbo is writing his book and telling Frodo his story. How he met gandalf, how he came to posses the ring, etc. it's a fairly well known story so I'm staying away from details and I'm gonna do my quick run down of what I liked and what I didn't.

What I liked? The misty mountain cold song! IT WAS AWESOME! The dwarves were given more character than they had in the books, I mean before this movie I could only name Gloin and that's because he was mentioned in LOTR, but in the book they were essentially non existent characters, now they were distinct and different enough to make me care about them. That being said I didn't really like all of the new dwarf personalities.

What I disliked? OH MY GOD! The one liners! I think there was a one liner every 3.8 seconds. there is one scene in the cave where it is almost literally that long in between the one liners. The dwarves can be too goofy, there's a little to much "over the topness?" with the action. Which all stems from the fact that it was supposed to be a lighter tone movie that they tried to make a heavier tone and couldn't really find the middle ground between the two (I feel).

This movie is still beautiful and a ton of fun. If you liked LOTR, then you'll probably have a good time with this. If you didn't? then don't see it. I will say it drags a lot more than the first 3, but still well worth the 3 hours.