Everyone saw Lord of the Rings. Yes, even you, you poser. As such, nobody needs any explanation about who Bilbo is or who Gandalf is or any other horseshit like that. This column assumes a working knowledge of the best selling books ever that weren’t the bible and/or movies that the entire English speaking world has seen.
Anyway, The Hobbit is a story that took place 60 years before Lord of the Rings which results in the hobbits being accidental custodians of the Ring of Power. Whether it’s really wise to try and stretch 1.3 movies worth of content into 3 films is debatable, but here we go.
Bilbo Baggins, being a descendant of the Tooks (the only cool hobbits ever) is essentially shanghaied from his pastoral existence to be a scout (hobbits are supposed to be nimble and able to move silently even though the films insist on showing them fall on their asses every time anything happens) for some dwarves (the dudes with facial hair) trying to enact a sequel to The Once and Future King. (even I thought that was a ponderous reference) Their kingdom was destroyed and treasure stolen by a giant dragon and they plan a madcap quest to take it back. But the kingdom is very far away on the other side of several action packed set pieces.
This next is applicable to those who have read the book:
The eagles still don’t talk, lame. Radagast the Brown: I hated you almost immediately but you inexplicably won me over, well done. The Great Goblin is seriously overworked trying to provide menace, comic relief, and macguffin services all in one scene, ruination of a very gross evil looking fucker. I don’t recall ‘the pale orc’ from the story, but I don’t mind the character addition. Thorin is pretty cool. Gandalf is not as cool as he has been. Martin Freeman rocks as Bilbo. Waaaaay too much ‘oh gosh this is scary’ closeups on the dwarves and hobbit. Showing the White Counsel vs Necromancer activity that was happening in the periphery of the story instead of keeping what Gandalf gets up to ominous and shadowy has worked so far.
Conclusion: I’d have made this 2 movies instead of 3. The story has probably been stretched a tad bit too thin. The mele action is still good. Overall solid and scratches the itch of wanting to see more middle earth on screem. But Fellowship of the Ring it’s not. It’s probably worth seeing in the theater, especially if you want to experience the new frame rate or whatever they use. I did not see it in 3D because 3D is a pointless waste of effort.
Decent movie, but it suffers from lack of content