The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

            Let me be honest.  The main, and nearly only reason I wanted to see The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey was because of Richard Armitage.  Ever since I watched him play Guy of Gisborne in Robin Hood I have been hooked.  So of course when I see Mr. Armitage in something, I am intrigued.  This does not mean I rush out and see everything Mr. Armitage is in, but I do give it a second look.  When I first heard The Hobbit was being made into a movie I was not really interested.  Then I heard Mr. Armitage was going to be in it and I reconsidered.  I had seen The Lord of the Rings trilogy, the commercials made it seem as though the film would be funny, and the movie was not about Frodo, so I decided to give The Hobbit a chance.  It was worth it.     

I tried to read The Hobbit when I was in college.  Whether or not I finished the book I do not remember.  I do know that while I was reading the book I did not remember a single word.  It and I did not get along.  This is why when I saw the film the storyline was brand new to me.  For me I think this was a good thing, because I had nothing to compare the film to.  I could just enjoy it as it was.

                The story begins with the Dwarves of Lonely Mountain losing their home and their gold to a dragon named Smaug (Benedict Cumberbatch).  They are forced to leave and must find a new way of life.  Even though many years pass, the Dwarves never forget what they had or where they came from.  Led by Thorin (Richard Armitage), the grandson of their former king, the Dwarves decide to take back what was once theirs.

                Gandalf the Grey (Ian McKellen), a wizard, tries to help the cause by recruiting the hobbit Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman).  Gandalf believes Bilbo would be the perfect person to act as the “burglar” to help get the Dwarves’ treasure back.  Bilbo does not agree and rejects the thought.  But Gandalf does not take the answer of no well.  He arranges for the Dwarves to hold their meeting at Bilbo’s home, without Bilbo’s permission.  When the Dwarves arrive, Bilbo is quite surprised, and not happy.  He becomes even more unhappy when the Dwarves eat everything in his house.  They try to convince Bilbo to come on their journey, but he refuses.  It is not until the next morning that Bilbo rethinks his stance.  With the Dwarves and Gandalf already gone, Bilbo has to hurry and catch up or else he will miss out on the opportunity completely.  Bilbo manages to find the travelers and the journey begins.

                As this is the first segment of a trilogy, I know there is a lot more story to come.  However, that does not mean nothing happened in this one.  The Dwarves were almost eaten.  Bilbo found the ring that is the subject of The Lord of the Rings and meets Gollum (Andy Serkis).  There is a battle with Orcs and Thorin is almost killed.  Those are just some of the things that happened in this film.  A lot more also occurred, but these are the events I remember most.

                I will admit, with some of the movie I was only partially paying attention.  After having just watched 2-1/2 hours of Les Misérables (another good movie), I got restless during this nearly three hour film.  I began to do two things at once.  This is my norm, but I realized with this film I was missing details here and there which forced me to rewind.  If you decide to watch this movie, I recommend only watching it.  Do not do anything else.  Not only is it easy to miss important details, but there are a lot of funny parts that should not go unnoticed as well. 

                  After the very serious The Lord of the Rings, it was really nice to have the humor in The Hobbit. I hope it is kept throughout the trilogy. With a film this long, it would have been easy to feel as though the movie was dragging. The humor kept this from happening. Being able to watch Richard Armitage helped too.