THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY (2012)

Prior to viewing THE HOBBIT I was very skeptical about Peter Jackson's overarching game plan, to adapt the orginal Tolkien work into three movies-- all of which, one presumes, will come close to three hours in length, as the first one has.

I enjoyed THE LORD OF THE RINGS, but that was after all a very different animal: a true literary epic that required such treatment.  I was less than enchanted with Jackson's 2005 take on KING KONG, which was crass and self-indulgent in its reinterpretat...