4.5 Stars I went to see this at the huge IMAX in London with full glorious 3D, plonked right in the middle of the best seats for the best view in the house. It would have had 5 stars but I don't think the much vaunted 48 frames per second lends itself to 3D very well. This wasn't a problem for the majority of the scenes but anything fast moving outside meant the images to the front were very blurred and tracking shots from one side of the screen to the other had a noticeable lag factor. Scenes in the dark such as inside Bag End, under the Misty Mountains etc were superb with a very impressive level of detail and depth but when the company are walking or running about in daylight it was hard not to focus on the blurred scenery. Peter Jackson has obviously been told to drag this out into another trilogy to milk the cash cow in the same vein as the Lord of the Rings but whereas the Rings were long enough and detailed enough to support three films (one per book) I don't see how The Hobbit can be stretched out for two more films without it feeling as though they have been artificially padded out. They have done a lot to lay the foundations for more involvement of The Necromancer story line which was just a brief aside in the original book and this will allow the potential re-introduction of characters from the Rings who have said they would be happy to come back in the new films. The Necromancer storyline should take up a big chunk of the next film and looks like involving Gandalf, maybe Saruman, Elrond, Galadriel and could see a return of Aragorn because he is meant to have known Gandalf for years before where the story picks up in The Fellowship. I hope they have filmed all the scenes needing Christopher Lee as the old sod is already 90 and might not make it to the end of another trilogy! Martin Freeman is excellent as Bilbo and there are some very nice touches and nods towards the first films. The standout scenes are with an all too brief meeting with Gollum. No wonder Tolkein thought he'd be better off with a bigger part in the trilogy after his short appearance in The Hobbit. The film ends about half way through the storyline in the book so to come are meetings with Beorn the shape changer, the spiders in Mirkwood, a chance to see Legolas with the Wood Elves (even though he isn't in the original book) and the escape to Lake Town. I don't know if the second film will end with Smaug or if it would stop at the end of the Battle of the Five Armies. If Jackson is going to stretch things out with additional plot lines like the Necromancer I can see the last big fight scene in the Hobbit (book) being left to the last of the three films. I am already planning to see The Hobbit again as there is so much going on that it will be well worth a second visit. I will see what it looks like on a normal sized 3D screen and whether or not the same 48fps blurring happens. I make no apology for being either a **** or a *****. So there.
I saw it in 2D I thought the backdrops (Misty Mountains especially) were proper stunning - and that was in a 24fps cinema, I believe. Mirkwood will take up loads of the next film - I haven't read the book since childhood but I didn't remember the bits with Radagast so well. I thought it was well better than any of the LOTR films - I really liked the way they worked the start of the film into the LOTR and the bookwriting bit of the Hobbit. It gets a big, ****y, ***** thumbs up fae me
That's the bit of me that should be encouraged. If I went to see a film with my wife that appealed to my adult, horny, nihilist side, I'd be worse off for it and so, frankly, would mankind.
I agree. He was superb in it. Pity he let it all go to his head and **** up what could have been a brilliant career.
