Today I…finally got round to watching The Hobbit. Yes, I am rather late to the party but I made it in the end.
I wasn’t expecting all the singing… but I enjoyed it very much. Martin Freeman is just perfect as Bilbo and Richard Armitage (swoon) was a very impressive Thorin. The real star, as always, is the landscape. The magnificent snowy capped mountains, those sweeping wide shots where the tiny figures are dwarfed against the rocks and endless hills.
I confess I was a little disappointed when the massive birds turned up at the last minute to save the day and then dropped them off on the top of a rock in the middle of nowhere. If Gandalf can summon the eagles, why didn’t he just get them a.) earlier and b.) to drop the dwarfs off at the right mountain. That would have cut a good hour off this movie and avoided the *spoiler alert* horrible giant spiders in part 2. Yes, blah, blah, ring, blah blah team bonding, I know. Too much fighting. The show-off, special effect bits were impressive but sometimes went on a bit too long for me- I wish I had seen it at the cinema, maybe I would have appreciated those bits more on the big screen.
Anyway, I am a Hobbit/LOTR fan (as you can see from the photo) and will give part one 8.5 out of 10.