Opening shot of a marathon

Rating: 4/10 (5 October 2016)

Peter Jackson invokes memories of his Lord of the Rings though stretching a single book to four long films seems slightly extreme. We begin with Frodo and Bilbo at Baggend before slipping back to Bilbo's youth. His hobbit hole is invaded by house-guests from hell, dwarfs who proceed to raid his substantial larder and eat and drink everything in sight plus play Frisbee and other games with his plates and cutlery. Had he not joined them he'd have had nothing left to eat.
The Dwarfish cast have the deepest basso profundo voices the agents could find and their voices rumbling in song vibrate the window panes as much as their snoring does later.
Somehow the pacing here seems to drag.... By contrast the pivotal scene in the entire 24-hour-long saga in which Bilbo burgles the one ring passes rather quickly. It's been too many decades since I read the original for me to comment on the faithfulness of the adaptation We get to see extended views of spectacular New Zealand scenery, lengthy fight and chase scenes riddled with special effects but three hours is a long time to sit.