Truly an unexpected journey!

Rating: 9/10 (24 December 2012)

It is not very often that a film's title encapsulates all it stands for. We truly are taken on an unexpected journey of wonder, and the most sensational fantasy ride the world of cinema has to offer. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is one of the few films this year, that just continues to get better as we embark on this phenomenal adventure.
After the first hour, we begin to suspect that the thrills we have just been witness to will come to an inevitable end, and the integrity of the film will exacerbate and become exhausted with time. Well that is what I anticipated anyway, and I could not have been more incorrect. Peter Jackson finds a exceptional balance between accommodating to The Lord of the Rings fans (which I admit I am not) and creating a new, fresh film franchise that will be just as memorable as the trilogy of the 2000s. There is a predictable nature of comparing The Hobbit to The Lord of the Rings, and I won't try to do any differently as there are natural parallels and differences to be observed. First and foremost, the story is vaguely similar to The Fellowship of the Ring, in that a peaceful and I guess, underdog of a hobbit, is given the task of a greatly important quest that requires determination, loyalty and cooperation. Differently to the trilogy however, The Hobbit does not emphasise its key themes until we are close to the end of the ride and the brakes are seemingly being put down. Nonetheless, when the motifs of loyalty, pride and patriotism are revealed, there is no surprise or disappointment as they have been present all along, just not prevalently expressed as camaraderie is in The Fellowship of the Ring.
In all honesty, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is simply fun. You have fun when you are watching. Scratch that. When you are living it. You don't feel like a human sitting in a theatre watching a film, you feel so completely engaged in the story, the characters, and the world of Middle-Earth. I almost felt that after leaving the cinema, I just been brainwashed for 170 minutes because I was just taken into a land of utter amusement and inconceivable enjoyment, not just surpassing my expectations for the film, but making those very expectations feel ashamed they ever doubted the opening of the trilogy for a moment.
I feel no need to proclaim everything the film did right and fantastically because the list would be endless. It probably would be more appropriate to discuss my dislikes of which there are only two, but to discredit The Hobbit in written form in any way possible would be to seemingly decline my enthusiasm for the next two years of the franchise, so 'I shall not pass' negative judgement.
I was quite happily ready to regard The Dark Knight Rises as 2012s finest offeringof film (that I have seen), even in July. Now I am afraid that Christopher Nolan's incredible conclusion to a trilogy, has been replaced by this almost perfect opening to another, what I hope will end up as, magical in every sense of the word, trilogy, of its own. That may be the unexpectedness of my enjoyment of The Hobbit, and slight disappointment at the conclusion to Nolan's Batman talking, but nevertheless, I stand in saying that Peter Jackson has delivered the standout film of the year... so far of course, there are seven days left.