Add The Hobbit to the pantheon of epic classic films!

Rating: 10/10 (15 December 2012)

Well, to say that this movie is state of the art seems an understatement. And even "State of the Art" seems to be open to other qualifiers since our theater is showing this film in, Digital Cinema, RealD 3D, High Frame Rate - RealD 3D and finally XD High Frame Rate - RealD 3D with Dolby Atmos. So to preface this review, I have to state that I watched this film in the simple RealD 3D offering.
However, that being said, the film still seems remarkably HIGH DEF to me. In fact, perhaps a little TOO much so, but I'll go in to that later.
Part of the legend and magic of this story in the previous LOTR trilogy is the mood, the mystery, the cinematography and the music. All of those blend together to create a world we have all fallen in love with. And the Hobbit continues in this tradition as we all hoped it would. At moments during the film I had to keep reminding myself that these short dwarfs and shorter hobbits and taller wizards and elves were not all on the screen acting together. Peter Jackson had to use his FX magic to make all the characters the right size as they moved in and about their places. It was just amazing to see how seamlessly they blended all the characters together in their spaces ... as if I were watching and walking among all of them in real time.
And this effect is ALL the more vivid when viewing the film in 3D. It is absolutely amazing to see all the characters so real that you can see the texture on their skin. This goes for the REAL characters AND the CG characters. Watching this film in 3D, even the "cheaper" form of 3D I watched it in is literally the next best thing to BEING a character in the movie. You would almost swear you were in the room with them.
However, this leads me to my ONE lament about all this realism ... unfortunately, part of the mystery and allure of this film or any other fantasy is the "other world" feel you get from the graininess of the film process. Like an impressionist painting, part of the charm in watching this type of movie is being transported to a world that "isn't quite real" ... a fantasy ... an OTHER world. The old film process along with any other added FX or coloring processes would allow for this mystical feeling in a film. Unfortunately, this film had more of a quality such as HD video tape or some other HD process. The mystery of the grain and blur of the film process is gone. It just felt TOO REAL.
Now for some, that might not be a negative, but for me, I found the hyper realism a little disappointing at times. I wanted a little more fantasy and mysterious mood as was presented in the previous LOTR's movies that I've come to know and love. But that's not a minus when it comes to seeing our heroes run through the grand scenery. Seeing these wonderful lands in HD 3D from all the stunning angles Jackson gives us is a feast for the eyes.
But that being said, the Hobbit is still an amazing film, a great story, and is rendered so well in 3D now that you feel it natural to BE IN a room with hobbits and dwarfs without having to suspend disbelief.
And we see several of our old favorite characters again, though they are supposed to be many years younger than we remembered them. Again, the FX and make up people did a great job of making them look relatively the same or younger as when we first saw them 10 years ago.
All in all, this film, like the LOTR franchise before it, is destined to be a classic.