81/100 The first film in the LOTR timeline, a hobbit, Bilbo Baggins, is enlisted as a burglar to help a troop of dwarves retake their mountain home, Erebor, from the dragon, Smaug. Exquisitely well casted, awesome photography, delightful characters and wonderful, exciting and humorous adventures dealing with trolls, orcs, wargs, goblins, stone giants, Gollum and Azog the Defiler. Meanwhile, what's going on in Dol Guldur. So nice to revisit Middle Earth after all these years. I would highly recommend watching the Extended version. So much story is lost in the Theatrical version.

It's one thing saying this isn't "Lord of the Rings" but it's quite another trying to watch without constantly comparing them. The same style of production with wonderful visual effects, Howard Shore's superb score and for much of the time it features many of the same actors from the earlier Peter Jackson trilogy. Similarly, it takes an age to get going. This first of three struggles in a different way too - there are no clearly defined roles for the characters; no "fellowship" if you like, for either the characters or the audience to focus on, so we are effectively starting from scratch with a whole slew of new characters whilst having to adjust to the new timelines for those we already know. Much less of a problem for those who have read the books, but for us other mortals that takes a while - and to be honest, I wasn't so impressed with the casting this time round. Martin Freeman was fine as "Dr Watson" in the BBC iteration of "Sherlock" but here, he is frankly quite annoying as "Bilbo". Newbie to the franchise Richard Armitage fares slightly better as Dwarf king "Thorin" but it is an otherwise unremarkable cast that joins Sir Ian McKellen's "Gandalf" as they set off to reclaim their underground kingdom of Erebor from the fearsome dragon "Smaug". To be fair, the story itself is not so good so the team have less to work with; and we are also now very used to the style and look of events from Middle Earth, so this was always going to make less of an impact - but the acting could have been considerably more robust. The saintly elves are bit too wholesome for me - though Cate "loads of audio reverb" Blanchett looks stunning as "Galadriel". There are plenty of evil orcs, goblins, and wargs to keep their perilous task engaging enough, though, and we are mercifully spared much of the infuriating "Gollum" (Andy Serkis) whom I cheered into the volcano at the end of "Return of the King" (2003). It is a good film, the two hours fly by and as a fan of the first trilogy, I shall stick with these - but I fear this is really a big screen experience that loses much on a smaller one with far to much dialogue and padding and not enough action.

There is no doubt that Peter Jackson does a great job bring Tolkien’s fantasies to life, much better, I imagine, than anyone must have assumed when they heard about the Lord of the Rings series way back when. I must confess that I don’t like them as much as I enjoyed reading the books. I am sure there are complex reasons applicable to me. I read them when I was very young and it would be difficult to match that first-time experience. Also, the fighting and battles seem more central to the story than I remember. Perhaps that relates more to the modern movie audience rather than my memory. As a funny side note, the film seemed to resemble in places that other fantasy series: the Jurassic Park franchise, in that they seemed to always be going from one close call to another, and the Wizard or somebody repeatedly yelled, “Run!” This series certainly sends the message that if you ever go on a dangerous adventure, it helps to have a wizard along for the journey.

Of course off the level of its 'The Lord of the Rings' predecessors, but I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed 'The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey'. It has good lure to it, the plot is more than interesting, it features pleasant callbacks and - like LOTR - looks exquisite. As for the casting, I like 'em. Martin Freeman (Bilbo) is, like Elijah Wood, an actor I've always found hit-and-miss, but I really did enjoy Freeman's performance here - the humour is his usual schtick, though the rest of his showing is strong. Ian McKellen (Gandalf) returns and is as much a joy to watch as before. None of the others, though all good, stand out massively, James Nesbitt (Bofur) does bring decent comedic stuff. Hopefully the two sequels to this are just as fantastic!

An other great master peace has been added the the Lord of The Rings collection. This movie was an excellent example of how great actors, an amazing story and a beautiful world can be produced in such an excellent way. Peter Jackson has out done his self by creating this great film. There are differences from the book but I can't complain about any of them, yes I love the original story but this one is still one of the best. All in all a amazing movie.

Peter Jackson creates the same world that he already shown us in the LOTR, but that's not the only thing he repeats. He also repeats ripping Tolkiens book into a sucession of endless races and actions scenes with orcs falling everywhere and several "inventions" that mess the beautiful story created by the English author. He also repeats those several minutes of platform game inside caves that we saw in Moria and in his version of King Kong. If you loved the previous movies from Jackson, you will love this too. If you are looking for some quality, you will only finding in the re-creation of the Middle Earth and the peformances of Ian McKellen, Martin Freeman and Cate Blanchett.