This review only covers the parts of the
book featured in the first movie; a full review of The Hobbit will be posted
early 2013.
Book:
At first, I found it really difficult to
get interested in the book- I will admit that I had previously picked up this
book twice over the last two years and was unable to get very far at all,
however this time around I was determined to press on in the hopes that I could
finish the book before I went to see the movie. Luckily for me, after the first
few chapters I found myself actually enjoying the book. The style of narrative
intrigued me, while it focuses on Bilbo and his experiences most of the time,
there are parts that slip into an unknown narrator voice that teases us with
little comments on what is to come- these comments made me anxious to read on
so that I could discover exactly what they were referring to. On top of this I
quickly learned to love the characters- Bilbo, all the dwarves and even (okay,
I lie- especially) Gollum. I know
some people may think I’m a fan of The Lord of the Rings or epic fantasy novels,
but honestly I have yet to read LotR (though I will in the future) and my
experience in epic fantasy novels comprises of 100 odd pages of Game of Thrones-
which is why it surprised me that I enjoyed the first third (in relation to the
movies) of this novel so much. Even if you think fantasy novels aren’t your
thing or whether you detest LotR with all of your might- I suggest giving The
Hobbit a go, you might be pleasantly surprised like I was.
Movie:
The thought of a movie that went for one
hundred and sixty-nine minutes had me almost dreading the night and mixed
reviews of the movie did not help much either. On one hand friend’s had said
the movie was ‘the most boring thing they’d ever seen’ while others were
already counting down the days until the nest movie was released- and while I
had enjoyed what I’d already read of the book, who do you trust when it comes
to movies?
The very start of the movie (as my friend’s
agreed later) seemed a bit superfluous- while it was good to have Frodo and older
Bilbo interacting and setting the story up to begin, there were parts of that
scene that seemed to drag on when the subject was necessarily needed at that
part. After this, of course, comes the introduction of the dwarves- possibly
one of my favourite scenes in both the book and movie. The atmosphere that was
set by the ‘merry gathering’ extended into the audience and the songs and
actions of the dwarves had most of the cinema laughing especially with Martin
Freeman’s (Bilbo Baggins) expressions.
Moving on to the actual adventure, I adored
the stunning shots of ‘Middle Earth’ and even more of ‘Rivendell’ and the
mountains and cliffs surrounding it. In fact, I found the entire movie really aesthetically
pleasing and the special effects including the goblins, orcs and the creatures
were amazing too.
Another thing I really enjoyed was the
element of storytelling and flashbacks; I especially enjoyed the story of how
the dwarves lost their homes and how that was shown in the movie rather than
just told. Finally, I really enjoyed Martin Freeman as Bilbo and was pretty
happy with the casting of the dwarves too- for me Martin really bought Bilbo to
life and made me adore him even more (I will admit that I am a fan of him as a
result BBC’s Sherlock). I can’t wait to see the remaining two films- if they
are anything like this one, then I don’t think I’ll be disappointed!
Remember that if you’d like to see a full
review of the book to check back early next year!
x Ely
