In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit

Rating: 8/10 (12 January 2013)

I did want to see this movie because it was one of those 'must see movies' that appear in the cinema from time to time (and some of those movies are actually good) but I was actually surprised as to how well this movie was done. Mind you, it was good to see the stars from Lord of the Rings (such as Ian McKellan and Christopher Lee et al) return for the prequel, but it was the way the movie was made and the way that, despite being small, Bilbo strides this film like the colossus that he really is.
Anybody who is familiar with the book will know that Bilbo is pretty much the person that saves the day throughout the story. It is not that Bilbo is some powerful sorcerer, or even wants to be a powerful sorcerer (all he wants is to get back home so he can rest in his comfy Hobbit hole), but rather that he is quick thinking, and willing to be brave when bravery is required. For instance, Gandalf praises Bilbo who saves the company by simply keeping the trolls talking until daylight.
The Hobbit could have easily been done in a single film, so I am surprised that they have decided to drag it out to three films. My concern is that the third film will simply be a bridge between the end of the second film (which I suspect ends with the recapture of Lonely Mountain) and the beginning of Fellowship of the Ring. Further, unlike Lord of the Rings, which had numerous scenes from the book cut from it, The Hobbit has been inflated with a lot of other scenes. A number of these events did happen, but they do not appear in the story, and we only know about them from notes and other stories that Tolkein left behind.
The movie does drag on for a but, and the scene in the goblin caves in the mountain was a bit over done (I did not like the goblin king at all) but by adding another orc king as an antagonist (and I suspect that the final confrontation will come at the end of the second movie) was quite well done. I guess the thing that was spelt out a lot clearer was the fact that Thorin and his band are pretty much refugees, and that it is not a quest for gold or treasure but rather it is a quest to restore them in their homeland.
Mind you it was not that the dwarfs were innocent victims of a rampaging dragon, but rather because their greed had overcome their sense, which lead to the tragic downfall. In a way you can also see that Thorin is also a very flawed character, not in the sense that he wasn't well written but because he shows a nasty stubborn and unforgiving streak and it is only at the end of the film that he finally realises that Bilbo was worth bringing along.