In and of itself, a fun fantasy movie!

Rating: 8/10 (12 December 2012)

There are a couple of kinds of people that will not find this movie to their tastes. Firstly those that, for whatever reason, don't like the fantasy genre itself (of which there seems to be quite a few movie critics). Secondly, those with high expectations - especially Tolkien canon obsessives - of what the movie ought to be.
This movie is really a deliberate prequel to the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy, rather than a straight adaptation of The Hobbit itself. It's narrative is designed in exactly the same way, relying heavily on backstory. The tone is pretty much the same while the characters largely correspond with the same archetypes - whereas Thorin is presented in the book as a slightly comical, pompous figure he's basically a 'True King' figure, like Aragorn, here. There is also a lot of visual and thematic references to Rings movies - a lot more than in the book, which reflects on the fact that The Hobbit was written way before Lord of the Rings came out, making such references pretty pointless!
The movie is long, like the original Trilogy, and ponderous in parts, although the action sequences, effects and amiability of the characters make up for it. For those wishing to explore the fuller reaches of the Middle Earth world, then this is the movie for them. New beasties, like Stone Trolls, Goblins (with a pretty good Goblin King), Spiders, Wargs (more wolf-like than before) Stone Giants and a Dragon are mixed with new characters and places. Radagast (the Brown Wizard) isn't quite as annoying as some have argued, although he is played for laughs. The visuals are a step above anything seen in the Rings movies too.
I questioned the need for a 'Trilogy' being made from such a short book, but in fact the narrative worked here, in and of itself, as effective as what we saw in the original Trilogy. Taken as a movie in itself, without reference to anything else (hard I know), this movie is still light years ahead of any other fantasy franchise out there. As for the 3D and frame rate, I had sore eyes after nearly 3 hours of wearing glasses. Just sayin'.