Wonderful prequel to Lord of the Rings

Rating: 8/10 (30 December 2014)

The Hobbit an Unexpected Journey
60 years before the adventures of the Lord of the Rings it is the first time, in the Shire, Bilbo meets Gandalf. Bilbo than a young man is having a regular Hobbit life, mostly in love with his books and his armchair. But When Gandalf comes into his life things are going to change when he ask him to go on a quest. Bilbo is absolutely not interested but Gandalf won't give up. Gandalf arrives again at Bilbo's house with a big group of dwarfs. They come to talk about the quest but mostly persuading Bilbo to go with them on the quest. A quest to reclaim the homeland of the dwarfs. After a long time Bilbo decides to go and his life will be changed forever when is going on a life changing journey.
As complicated as the books are the filmmakers had to make choices in order to make a good film based on the Middle earth universe. And it is obvious that in the Hobbit director Peter Jackson already dared to put more his own turn into the script. And that was something he did in the Lord of the Rings series, there he was constant faithful to the material. In the Hobbit there are things you don't find in the books. That is a very tricky decision and not every fan will like that. Some decisions are not so good while others were. Having said that; The story of this first film is great. You already see a great character development in the first film and the film is very excited and it keeps you watching it. Constantly there is happening something excited or fun. It is just a great first-prequel-film to the Lord of the Rings. Peter Jackson proved with the Lord of the Rings that he was great in casting his characters on screen. With actors as Christopher Lee, Ian McKellen and Cate Blanchett you are just having an amazing cast, maybe the perfect cast. So there was never a need for the fans to worry, Martin Freeman (playing Bilbo) proves that. He does a beautiful job playing the main character. Doing the more emotional scenes saying his heroic lines but also he plays his role on a very funny way, exactly the way Bilbo should be portrayed. Apart from Martin Freeman I think all the dwarfs did an amazing job bringing all these characters to screen. They are not a bunch of dwarfs but they all have their own personalities and they brought that over beautifully , very funny but sometimes also on a very emotional way.
I rate this film 8 out of 10 it was just really great watching and everything seemed to make sense. The fans can be proud of this first prequel film and should be proud of the result. My compliments for the cast and crew!