An unexpected delight..a visual treat!

Rating: 9/10 (8 January 2013)

Peter Jackson is at it again pushing the limits of what the cinematic medium can do.He harnesses the power of 3D and marries it to his innovation of shooting at 48 frames per second.The result is a film which looks almost unreal and beautiful beyond belief. Films are conventionally shot at the rate of 24 frames per second which essentially means that the film camera exposes 24 individual single surface of photographic film in a second and when this is played back it creates the illusion of motion.This convention has served cinema well but shooting at 48 fps gives the film a crispness and brilliance while reducing blur and flicker, the only rival of which is the 70mm format.When the budgets of films have swelled to zillions of dollars spending a few hundred thousand extra on film stock seems logical to achieve a superior look.This film creates a new standard much in the same way that Avatar did when it reinvented 3D technology.While Peter Jackson may not have toiled as hard as James Cameron in the research department his idea of increasing the frame rate manages to achieve a breakthrough.
The genres of fantasy adventure and sci fi need something special to keep us engaged with it.There is no dearth of films out there that gives us flying monsters,dragons,cute adolescent heroes, bearded sorcerers and ethereal witches all played by droll and charming British actors.When the makers of the money spinner Lord Of The Ring trilogy (Ben Bernankie could have funded his quantitative easing with the proceeds) turns his mind to bringing a prequel to the big screen the expectations are more than sky high.Jackson used the other worldly landscapes of New Zealand to great advantage in the LOTR trilogy and singlehandedly revived the tourism industry there.But the man is not all flashy effects, his way of story telling with a maddening attention to detail is something that was quite evident even in King Kong where he had us believe that King Kong was indeed in love with Naomi Watts.The scene with her dancing and jumping to impress upon Mr Kong that he should love her and not dash her against a rock is a piece of great direction. The Hobbit was published in 1937 for younger readers unlike the LOTR books which had to contend with the dark shadow of WW2.While the LOTR films deeply divided Tolkien fans about reducing the book to an action adventure instead of the charm of the hobbits who occupied centerstage in the book, The Hobbit starts off on its own terms. In circa 2012 Peter Jackson presents his own version on his own terms for an audience reared on high definition high octane video games.The film displays some of the innocence of Tolkiens book at the beginning with an exuberant impromptu dinner party of dwarfs much to the exasperation of the unwilling host Bilbo Baggins.The middle act, however, treads typical LOTR territory, very competently and full of inventive monsters, ogres, elves and what not.All this of course presented in the 48fps 3D which has none of the dimness of the typical 3D flick.
The Hobbit while unable to bring anything spectacularly new to the table in terms of content or storytelling grammar dazzles all through its nearly three hour length on the strength of its technical excellence and fine performances set to stirring background music.This film was made on a budget on 180 million USD which is roughly 1000 crore India rupees. This "product" can be consumed for about 300 Rupees or 15 USD depending on your location.Its eye popping bang for the buck!!Another way to judge a piece of entertainment is the return on your time.If the Hobbit trilogy runs for 9 hours that will be more than the time taken to read the book. Films deliver us the stories of novels in a fraction of the time taken to read the books and get much vilified in the process.This time the films may need more of our time, cost three times a single copy of the book and come in three installments over 2.5 years.Thats the power of the global blockbuster for you.Oh and I forgot the cost of the popcorn!