Movie Review: The Hobbit

I had very high expectations for The Hobbit because of the amazing job that Peter Jackson did with The Lord of the Ring trilogy, resulting in about eight million Oscars (a slight exaggeration). On the other hand, I read The Hobbit years back and I hated it. I’m not a fan of Tolkien, but I most certainly a fan of Peter Jackson. With these two opposing forces of good and evil at work, which one would prevail?

By and large, The Hobbit is a good movie. The first half of the movie moves rather slowly and made me wonder why they decided to make this a trilogy. Eventually the pace of the movie picks up as Bilbo Baggins and his band of dwarves plus the wizard Gandalf, brilliantly played by Ian McKellan, go on a journey where they have to face trolls, ogres, wolves, and goblins, a smorgasborg of mythical creatures. Gollum also makes his appearance in the fateful scene where the ring lands in Bilbo’s hands.

The source material is not as strong as that of the Lord of the Rings, so this trilogy of movies is never going to equal that one. Despite that, Peter Jackson does an amazing job of creating a compelling and believable fantasy world including the creatures that occupy this world. Although not to Lord of the Rings standards, The Hobbit is nonetheless a movie worth watching.