Setting the stage

Rating: 7/10 (21 December 2012)

I waited forever for The Hobbit and was one of the first few to catch it on December 13 as soon as it opened here.
First things first, the 48 frames / second really undid the excitement in the first 40 minutes or so adding to the mix those virtually unending scenes & dialogs in thick dwarfish accents & I found myself a bit taken aback. One long , long scene rolled into yet another.Mr. Jackson was indeed extremely generous with the time given to each and every aspect of presentation & I got the impression that somehow he forgot the viewers while brooding over the next fine detail.
Having said all the above, the movie remains a master-piece of an experience with it's stunning cinematography, art-direction & definitely one above in terms of CGI for this subject AND for this age. There were so many scenes which I fell in love with: the trolls rolling, the mountains fighting,the goblins giggling, the Orks gurgling & Gollum with his riddles. But let's not forget that all of this makes up about 40% of the film. The rest 60% is setting the stage for the next two installments which in my humble opinion would present quite a challenge to Mr. Jackson after the shortfalls in the first movie. The main reason I believe is that three movies are being made out of a relatively thin volume of a book. Quite interestingly.
As an average movie-goer I was perplexed by the highs & lows of the movie.But as an ardent LOTR fan & with immense,immense respect for Mr. Peter Jackson, for his passion & dedication to the subject, I have quit evaluating the movie based on the experience which is "Fellowship of the Ring" (& it remains an experience each time I watch FOTR). I think my own expectations were over the roof for this one so taking them out & evaluating the movie on it's own merits I can say I look forward to the next two installments as I think they might just turn out to be much better in terms of story telling and audience engagement.