The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

After a promising beginning that evokes the whimsy and wonder of his Lord Of The Rings movies, Peter Jackson fumbles dramatically with The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, the first of three movies adapting J.R.R. Tolkien's shorter and, shall we say, less epic novel. It's not that Jackson has lost the knack for bringing Tolkien to the screen, it's that he often applies his …Rings tricks and techniques to this smaller story and An Unexpected Journey feels bloated and sluggish as a result. (60 per cent of the time, it feels like Deleted Scenes: The Movie.) It doesn't help that unassuming hobbit Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman, ideally cast) getting roped into helping a squad of dwarves reclaim their stolen treasure from an avaricious dragon isn't quite as compelling as, oh, saving the world from absolute evil. But for all the protracted sequences or irritating shout-outs to the …Rings trilogy, Jackson doesn't completely screw up – there's the odd hint of grandeur or humour or excitement here. They're just mired in a morass of overindulgence and I'm semi-dreading heading back to the cinema for the second instalment, The Desolation Of Smaug, if it offers more of the same. Maybe for the DVD/Blu-ray release, Jackson and his Wingnut Films team can reverse the Extended Edition process and edit this 169-minute beast down to a lean 100 minutes or so.