IT'S great to be back in Middle-earth. There may be a great darkness descending on the forests, but the weather is always fine in Hobbiton.
And that’s exactly where Peter Jackson drops us into The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey; 60 years prior in Tolkein-time to the happenings of Jackson’s Oscar-winning $2.8 billion-grossing The Lord of the Rings trilogy.
Prepare your children before taking them to An Unexpected Journey
This is not yet the time of Frodo, Aragorn and Legolas. The central figure here is the hobbit of the title, Bilbo Baggins.
A happy homebody, he is overwhelmed when a baker's dozen dwarves pile into his kitchen. Their mission: to reclaim their home from the dragon Smaug. Bilbo is to be their "burglar”. But this hobbit is a reluctant journeyman - adventures, he says, are "nasty, uncomfortable things" and "make you late for dinner".
Martin Freeman (UK TV shows The Office and Sherlock) is the perfect Bilbo - equal parts wide-eyed wonder, fearful bumbling and dry humour.
Thorin’s hero back-story is marvellously fleshed out. Little wonder there’s already major buzz around Armitage - his Thorin is to The Hobbit what Viggo Mortensen’s Aragorn was to The Lord of the Rings.
The breadcrumbs that link this new prequel to Jackson’s much-loved LOTR trilogy are many - from the appearance of Frodo (Elijah Wood) to Bilbo’s first encounter with Gollum and that one ring.
The latter scene is magnificent: both frightening and funny as Bilbo and the split-personality creature trade riddles in a watery cave.
Gollum’s amazingly expressive face is just one pointer to the technological leaps taken in filmmaking, and embraced by Jackson and his team, in the last decade. Unsurprisingly, An Unexpected Journey features a lot more CGI than the LOTR movies, while thankfully still making good use of New Zealand’s epic landscape and a quality flesh-and-bone ensemble cast.
READ MORE: http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/entertainment/movies/neala-johnsons-review-of-the-hobbit-an-unexpected-journey/story-e6freeuc-1226529768368
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