Dare to embellish..

Rating: 10/10 (22 December 2012)

I waited long enough to see this movie, read far too many negative reviews from professional critics and was prepared for more than a little disappointment. I need not have worried.
The pacing was perfect. How tired I am of epic stories which build the story and resolve it within two hours. The book may be short but the universe it is set in is fleshed out in the background, warranting plenty of embellishment and diversion. How wonderful to see the dwarfs at the height of their wealth and power in the beginning. How like the books to allow us a change of pace and rest in Rivendell. It make all the difference in the world if you sit back and drink in the story, knowing full well that we have the trials in Mirkwood, the battle with Smaug and the epic war at the end, still to come.
The 3D and HFR was immersive and not intrusive. Smooth camera pans across Middle Earth, slow motion battles and wonderfully executed creatures all benefit from the extra fluidity of the new technique. I have been playing video games for 30 years.... those who say that the film feels like a computer game must be thinking of some computer game from the future where we can render huge underground caverns and thousands of goblins in realtime. Would that Ironforge in Warcraft ever gets to look like the dwarven halls in this movie!
Jackson captures the right level of slapstick with the introduction of the party of dwarfs, without ever diminishing the nobility of each character. The troll sequence is droll and the goblin caves sequence evoke Indy's escape from the Temple of Doom, as Spielberg might have executed it with today's technology.
If I were to call out a minor niggle, it would be the embellishment that the script adds towards the end of the movie. The literal cliff-hanger of a sequence is marred slightly by a key modification which significantly changes Bilbo's status. I would rather have waited for his future heroics to bring him closer to 'rogue, level 60'. Thank goodness the world did not end yesterday, I hope I am still around to see the next two parts.