The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

Spoiler warning: This review is being posted on the film's day of release and some spoilers are discussed.

Bilbo and the thirteen dwarves have escaped from the orcs on the banks of the Great River and made their way to the home of Beorn. From here they must brave the depths of Mirkwood and cross the Long Lake to finally reach Erebor and conclude their quest. Meanwhile, Gandalf is summoned south to investigate rumours of great evil stirring in the abandoned fortress of Dol Guldur.

The Desolation of Smaug is the middle film of The Hobbit movie trilogy, Peter Jackson's prequel to the Lord of the Rings movies of a decade ago. Its predecessor, An Unexpected Journey, had a mixed reception last year with its lighter tone, great performances and occasional visual splendour being lauded but the overlong running time, over-use of CGI and jarring tonal variances being criticised.

The Desolation of Smaug is, thankfully, a stronger and more consistent movie than its predecessor. Indeed, it feels like Jackson has even listened to his critics, though with most of the trilogy in the can before the first film was released this seems impossible. Still, it may have affected his editing choices. The film is both punchier and pacier than the first movie. Action beats and quieter moments of character-building support one another more organically and there's a distinct lack of totally time-wasting, filler material: no overlong goblin king japery or random moments of erinaceidae resuscitation here. That's not to say there aren't moments that could have been trimmed (most of the action sequences tend to go on a bit longer than they should, though not to the extent of the likes of Man of Steel or The Matrix Reloaded), but generally you can see what Jackson was aiming for and most of his ideas - this time around anyway - are actually good. Sequences that could have bogged down the movie are surprisingly brief: the interlude with Beorn (thankfully much more convincing in motion than the early photographs) is so quick, to the point, effective and then dispensed with that it's hard to believe that Peter Jackson directed the sequence. Presumably a 35-minute version of the scene will be on the extended cut.

Similarly, the trip through Mirkwood unfolds at a rapid, crisp pace, with montages used to depict the wearying journey rather than having it just go on and on. The passage through Mirkwood is one of the areas where the book slows to a crawl and it's rather pleasing that this is one area that the film handles more effectively than the novel. Jackson employs some cleverness - or cliche, depending on your POV - to depict the talking spiders by having the Ring translate their hisses into speech. This idea is not incompatible with what was shown in Rings (with Frodo first hearing Sauron's Black Speech and then what he was saying in Westron) and handily gets around what appeared to be a tonal incompatibility between The Hobbit and Rings (talking animals are present in the former but not in the latter). Jackson again strikes gold by suggesting that Bilbo's surprising viciousness in combat is driven by the Ring and layers some moments of internal struggle into the film, as Bilbo is shown being surprised by this new side to himself, but willing to use it when things get rough. This is a darker, more edgy Bilbo than we saw in the first film and Martin Freeman relishes the chance to play him.

The visit to Thranduil's realm is where the film threatens to go off the rails. Intriguing ideas (like Thranduil being hideously scarred from a previous battle with a dragon but masks it with magic) are presented here and Evangeline Lilly debuts as new character Tauriel, the captain of Thranduil's guard. Tauriel is a more earthly warrior-elf than Liv Tyler's Arwen from the first trilogy, less likely to bog down in emotional self-examination and instead get out and take action. Lilly - who had retired from acting after concluding her role on Lost - provides a stronger performance than some of the material warrants: her flirtation with Kili (Aidan Turner) only really works because both actors sell it so well but some of the dialogue is painful. Fortunately, it's less interminable a relationship than Aragorn and Arwen's constant angsting in the original trilogy.

Less successful is Orlando Bloom's reintroduction as Legolas. Much as the make-up and effects teams do their best, they can't totally hide the fact that Bloom is a decade older (and, a pain I can relate to, just ever so slightly heavier). In particular, he seems to be wearing some contact lenses that look slightly unnatural and make him look a bit more ethereal than in the original film, something I found distracting. Legolas also has no real role in the film: what should have been perhaps a background cameo in the elven-king's hall has been fleshed out into an arse-kicking action hero, the character who took down a mumakil singled-handedly in the original trilogy here turned up to eleven. The scenes where he's using the dwarves' heads as stepping stones to cross a river whilst shooting down multiple orcs are less 'badass' and more 'unconvincing' due to the amount of obvious CGI in use. A scene where he mocks a picture of Gloin's son is also amusing until the film decides to spell out the irony of that son being Legolas's future sparring partner Gimli in neon glittering letters fifty feet tall. Yeah, we got it, Peter.

The Laketown interlude works surprisingly well in the film.

A more surprisingly successful decision is the one to flesh out Laketown. What was a brief waystop in the novel turns into a full episode in the film, complete with scheming intrigue between Stephen Fry's Master of the Lake (not a role that stretches him, but one he plays to the hilt anyway) and Luke Evans's well-played Bard the Bowman. There's also a potentially controversial decision to split the dwarves up here into two camps, but this actually works out well, giving us a leg in both locations where the inevitable showdown with Smaug will unfold.

The film's climax - or the closest we get to one - involves the showdown between Bilbo and Smaug in the caverns of Erebor. This goes pretty well, with Benedict Cumberbatch bringing the requisite level of menace to the dragon, up until the confusing decision is made to give the dwarves an epic battle of their own with Smaug. This results in much running around and jumping on machinery in an over-clever attempt to kill the beast. It appears this scene stems from a perceived (but unnecessary) need to have the dwarves more active in the battle with Smaug, but all it does is reduce the threat of the dragon. Given the flashbacks in the first film showed him storming the fortress and slaughtering hundreds or thousands of dwarves in minutes, the ease with which nine dwaves give him the run-around makes him look like an idiot and the concluding scenes (which are from the novel, where they are much more logical) unfathomable.

Spliced between these scenes are why this had to be a trilogy in the first place: the new storyline where Gandalf travels to Dol Guldur to investigate the mysterious 'Necromancer'. These scenes would be creepier if the Rings-seasoned audience wasn't sick of ancient, mysterious and creepy towers by this point. Gandalf's face-to-face confrontation with the Necromancer is also rather disappointing, and carries less weight than his fight with Saruman in Fellowship of the Ring (the use of Gandalf creating a magical force shield complete with lighting and strobing effects is also rather unnecessary compared to the more subtle effect he uses to stand against the balrog in the original trilogy). Watching through these scenes, one can't but help feel that Tolkien's decision to keep the Necromancer as an off-page threat was the correct one.

Ultimately, The Desolation of Smaug (***½) is more watchable, drags far less and is less twee than its predecessor. The new characters and actors all do great work, the effects are better and more of the dwarves are given their moments in the sun (even Bombur takes a level in badass at one point and turns into an orc-killing machine). New locations, characters and subplots - even non-Tolkien ones - are inserted into the story with more skill than I think many were expecting, and Jackson is able to tie most of the narratives together satisfyingly (the Dol Guldur strand excepted, which still feels too disconnected from everything else). But where the film comes undone - to the point of triggering audible gasps of horror and then anger from the audience I watched the film with - is the exceptionally bad choice of where to end the film. The last act of the film builds and builds to an epic showdown...only to push it off at the last minute to the next film. If this was in just the main storyline it could perhaps be borne, but no less than five plots and subplots are all left on cliffhangers for the final movie, robbing this one of any sense of satisfying climax or catharsis. It's a poor editing choice by Jackson, one which will presumably leave the next film with a very muddled and anti-climactic opening.

The Desolation of Smaug is on general release now and will be released on DVD and Blu-Ray, again twice over, in 2014.

The Lord of the Rings - The Return of the King

The War of the Ring is in full swing. The armies of Rohan have defeated those of the renegade wizard Saruman at Helm's Deep, but now Sauron's main armies have been unleashed against the great kingdom of Gondor. Denethor, Steward of Gondor, has been driven to distraction by grief so it falls to Gandalf to arrange the defence of the kingdom and its capital city, Minas Tirith. Meanwhile, Frodo and Sam have been guided into Mordor by Gollum and face the final leg of their journey to Mount Doom. But first they must brave the pass of Cirith Ungol, and an ancient terror that dwells in the mountain caves.

The Return of the King concludes the Lord of the Rings film trilogy. On release it was one of the most-lauded movies of all time, receiving eleven Oscars which tied it with Ben-Hur and Titanic for the record, and becoming the second-highest grossing movie in history. However, critical reappraisals of the film over the past decade have been more mixed.

On the positive side, much of the craftsmanship, attention to detail and acting skills of the first two movies have carried over into this one. The actors all do good work (even if Viggo Mortensen as 'King' Aragorn is distinctly less convincing than his depiction of Strider the Ranger) and are bolstered by the addition of John 'Walter Bishop from Fringe' Noble as Denethor. Denethor isn't very well-written, but Noble gives his heart and soul in the role and manages to sell it, inconsistencies, unconvincing-flaming-death-plunges, warts and all. The effects are impressive, with the miniature work on Minas Tirith and its combination with CGI and physical sets being breathtaking. The CGI for Gollum has been upgraded as well, improving upon the already near-flawless work on the second film. There's some genuine power to iconic scenes from the book as they are realised in the film: the Ride of the Rohirrim is amazing, the battle with Shelob (which could have looked very silly) is extremely well-done, the lighting of the beacons is inspiring and Sean Astin's work as Sam on the slopes of Mount Doom is highly impressive. The decision to cast Andy Serkis as the pre-Ring Gollum is also inspired, and the resulting prequel sequence for the movie is tremendously effective.

But, for all of its high points, the film suffers in several areas. The most notable is pacing. The three-and-a-half hour cinematic cut is simply too long, with too many climaxes. The novel averts this problem by inserting the thematically vital Scouring of the Shire sequence into the midst of the ending, giving the Hobbits a crisis they need to overcome by themselves before matters are fully resolved. The absence of the Scouring, though understandable for time and budgetary reasons, weakens the ending of the story on screen and makes the final sequence of goodbyes and farewells somewhat interminable. Something that should have definitely been cut is the 'dying Arwen' storyline, which is utterly nonsensical, doesn't make any sense and leeches the life out of the film whenever it appears. Whilst it was nice of the film-makers to try to involve Arwen more in the storyline, it is so badly-handled they really shouldn't have bothered. This also leads to the bizarre scene in which Elrond teleports to Rohan (making something of a mockery of the extremely tough journey everyone has endured, if he can just replicate it in a few days with ease) and gives Aragorn his sword, which he could have just done before they left Rivendell as in the book. These problems can be boiled down to the producers not trusting Tolkien and the book and instead inserting lots more fake drama and jeopardy into the storyline in an unnecessary attempt to spice things up when things are tense enough and the stakes high enough already.

Another problem is an overreliance on CGI and effects. The Return of the King features a startling three times as many effects shots as The Fellowship of the Ring and this leads to, at times, the film starting to slide into the Star Wars prequel trilogy problem of things looking too fake and unconvincing. The Battle of the Pelennor Fields is visually impressive and it would be difficult to do it without CGI, but there's too many shots where it's obvious the actors are waving swords in front of greenscreens. This fakery lets down the battle a little, and renders it less impressive overall than the much more tightly-orchestrated Battle of Helm's Deep from the previous film. There's also the decision to use the Army of the Dead to save the day at the Pelennor Fields, which is a cheap and easy way of resolving the situation but also a nonsensical one: in the book the Army can be used once and once only, and vanishes after Aragorn uses it to seize the fleet at Pelargir. In the film it can be used until Aragorn says so, and it's hard to argue with Gimli's suggestion they carry on using it until Sauron is defeated (what's a few more days to an army that's been cursed for a thousand years?). The dumbing-down from the book in an apparent attempt to avoid having to cast Prince Imrahil and use Gondor's actual army is bizarre, as that would not have been particularly time-consuming anyway.

Ultimately, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (***½) does not have so many problems that those who loved the first two films will hate this one and some of those problems (the increased use of portentous and pretentious dialogue, for example) are taken straight from the book. But The Return of the King remains the weakest link in the trilogy, where self-indulgence - particularly with regards to length, spectacle and effects - are allowed on a few too many occasions to override the storytelling and characters. It is available now in the UK (DVD, Blu-Ray), and USA (DVD, Blu-Ray).

Note on the Extended Edition: As with its predecessors, The Return of the King was re-released a year after its original release with new material added. In this case there is about 45 minutes of new scenes. Some of these scenes are actually very good, with the final confrontation with Saruman being something that should never have been cut out in the first place. However, too many scenes go over information we already know, add little to the narrative and in a few cases are excruciatingly awful. The scene where Aragorn seizes the pirate ships is badly-acted, badly-written and appallingly self-indulgent (the crew of the pirate ship is made up of behind-the-scenes crewmembers). Even Jackson on the commentary admits it isn't every good, which makes it a bit odd that they put it back. The less also said about the 'billion skull rockslide', the better. The biggest problem is that, Saruman scene aside, the Extended Edition does not add anything essential to the film and drags its already overlong run time to well over the four hour mark. Accordingly, the Extended Edition (***) is in this case not the definitive version and should only be watched if you are a completionist. It is also available now in the UK (DVD, Blu-Ray) and USA (DVD, Blu-Ray).

The Lord of the Rings - The Two Towers

The Fellowship of the Ring has been broken. Frodo and Sam are heading east to Mordor, hoping to slip quietly past Sauron's forces. But they are being followed by the creature Gollum, who wants the Ring back for himself. Meanwhile, Merry and Pippin have been captured by uruk-hai loyal to the rogue wizard Saruman and are being taken westwards towards his stronghold. Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas are in hot pursuit, but their path is diverted south to the Kingdom of Rohan, where Saruman's armies now make war upon the beleaguered forces of the bewitched King Theoden. To gain victory and allow Rohan to join Gondor in resisting Sauron, the companions must free Theoden and win a victory over a vastly superior enemy.

The Two Towers picks up immediately from the end of The Fellowship of the Ring and makes no concessions to newcomers: no 'story so far', no opening crawl and only a couple of brief flashbacks. Like so much with the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy this was a risk but one that paid off, with the film gaining immense financial and critical success.

The film has much to recommend it. As with the first movie, it benefits from an excellent cast that gets even better in this film with the likes of Bernard Hill, Miranda Otto, Karl Urban, Andy Serkis, David Wenham and Brad Dourif joining proceedings (viewers of the Extended Edition also get an early chance to meet the excellent John Noble as Denethor). Little criticism can be made of the cast and their evident enthusiasm for the project and this helps carry the film over the bumps in the road. As with the first movie, the effects are excellent and even better than before, with Weta Digital clearly emboldened with confidence after their work on the first film. The stand-out is Gollum, the most stunning digital creature creation to date (and so he remains). Between the animators, Andy Serkis's superb performance and the reactions of his co-stars, Gollum is brought to life and utterly convinces you he is there in the film.

The set design and miniature work is also excellent, with Edoras and particularly Helm's Deep being extraordinary creations. This informs the Battle of Helm's Deep, the stand-out battle of the trilogy and one of the most stunning engagements ever depicted on film. Jackson films the battle with dynamism and allows viewers to follow the geography and ebb and flow of the battle with clarity. He also holds back on the CGI as much as possible to focus on scenes of actors engaging in actual combat and some excellent use of miniatures (particularly when the Deeping-wall is breached).

However, the film is not quite as successful as Fellowship. The biggest problem is inherited from the book, with the action split three ways between three different groups of characters. Tolkien decided that switching back and forth would be distracting, so he held back Frodo and Sam's storyline and did it all at once. Jackson is forced to switch back and forth and this is indeed not as successful as might be hoped, with carefully-built tension dissipating as we move to another storyline at a moment of tension. This problem is enhanced by the fact that a large chunk of Frodo and Sam's storyline has been held back for the third movie (where it does actually belong, chronologically), including the infamous cliffhanger ending. This forces Jackson and his team to introduce new material to fill the void. This results in the infamous 'weakening of Faramir' arc where Faramir first decides to give the Ring to his father and then changes his mind. The problem isn't so much the idea - giving Faramir more to do and more of an arc is not necessarily a bad idea in itself - but the logic. It is unconvincing that Faramir, having started to fall under the Ring's influence, would then back up and let Frodo go with it. The book approach (where Faramir avoids being influenced by it at all) is less 'dramatic' but makes more sense.

Merry and Pippin also suffer from the structural issues, though this is inherited from the book. Whilst Aragorn and company engage in political issues in Rohan and fight off Saruman's forces (twice in the movie) in epic battles, Merry and Pippin spend most of the film on the shoulders of a giant ambulatory tree talking about stuff for hours on end. The actors do their best, but it's hard to suppress a groan when the action cuts to another scene of Treebeard talking in extreme slow motion. It also doesn't help that the Entmoot lacks the grandeur of the book and their storyline then suffers a major believability collapse when the Ents seem to be unaware that Saruman was burning down their own forest (and Treebeard can then summon an entire Ent army to him instantly). It's only at the end, during the assault on Isengard, that their storyline really kicks into life. However, there's not much helping the interminable Elrond/Arwen scenes or the pointless 'Aragorn falls off a cliff' interlude.

Still, whilst the weaknesses niggle, the sheer scale of the movie, the splendid cast and effects and the epic impact of the battle for Helm's Deep cannot fail but impress.

The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (****) is not the instant classic its predecessor was, but remains a highly watchable and entertaining movie. It is available now in the UK (DVD, Blu-Ray), and USA (DVD, Blu-Ray).

Note on the Extended Edition: As with its predecessor, The Two Towers was re-issued as an Extended Edition a year after its original release. The Extended Edition adds approximately 40 minutes of new material to the movie. These include more scenes with Merry and Pippin (some of which fortunately do not involve riding around on Treebeard) and more material for Frodo, Sam, Gollum and Faramir. This, happily, has the effect of balancing out the three big storylines in the film and makes them feel more of equal weight. The highlight of the Extended Edition is a great flashback scene uniting Boromir, Faramir and Denethor on screen which helps explain their dysfunctional family dynamics much better than dialogue alone ever could. Despite the greater length, the Extended Edition of The Two Towers actually feels shorter by improving the pacing between the three storylines and adds some excellent new scenes. Accordingly, the Extended Edition (****½) is the definitive version of the film and is recommended over the cinematic cut. It is also available now in the UK (DVD, Blu-Ray) and USA (DVD, Blu-Ray).

Wertzone Classics: The Lord of the Rings - The Fellowship of the Ring

Sixty years ago, the Hobbit Bilbo Baggins came into possession of a magic ring. When he decides to leave his home in the Shire and retire, he finds it curiously difficult to leave the ring behind. Disturbed, the wizard Gandalf investigates and discovers that Bilbo's trinket is actually the One Ring of legend, which the Dark Lord Sauron needs to complete his return to power. Bilbo's cousin Frodo has to take the Ring on a long and arduous journey across Middle-earth to the volcano known as Mount Doom, deep within Sauron's land of Mordor, the only place where it can be destroyed.

Back in 1999, when Peter Jackson began filming The Lord of the Rings, there was an expectation of failure. A thousand-page-long book adapted into three three-hour movies by a director whose biggest previous movie had been a minor ghost comedy starring Michael J. Fox? And on a budget of only $90 million apiece at a time when $200 million+ budgets for such epic films were becoming more commonplace? It seemed like a recipe for disaster.

Against the odds, Jackson pulled it off. The trilogy as a whole is a remarkable work, translating Tolkien's vision onto the screen with - for the most part - respect and integrity. There are missteps, mistakes and some ill-conceived changes, but these are mostly restricted to the second and third films in the sequence. The Fellowship of the Ring, on the other hand, is moved from page to screen with enviable skill.

The main key to the film's success is the casting. Elijah Wood may be a lot younger than Frodo in the novel, but he sells Frodo's mix of book-learned wisdom with a lack of practical experience with wide-eyed enthusiasm. Representing the old guard, veteran actors Ian McKellen, Ian Holm and Christopher Lee bring their roles of Gandalf, Bilbo and Saruman to life with presence and gravitas. The actors are pretty much all excellent, even Cate Blanchett as she struggles with a curiously-written interpretation of Galadriel. Marton Csokas is probably the film's weakest acting link as Celeborn, but given he has about twenty seconds of screentime, this is not a major issue. I must also admit to not being altogether convinced by Viggo Mortensen as Aragorn the King, but as Strider the Ranger in this first film he is superb.


In terms of scripting and changes from the books, some key sequences are missing. Tom Bombadil is gone (which is a wise move), as are the barrow-wights (which is more regrettable) and other elements are compressed (the journey from the Shire to Bree, which covers dozens of pages in the book, happens instantly on-screen) or eliminated altogether (Fatty Bolger, the 'Fifth Hobbit', is exorcised from events). Other events that happened in the book off-page or only in flashback occur here in their correct chronological order, such as Saruman's confrontation with Gandalf at Isengard.

For the most past these changes are well-judged, even if some fan-favourite moments are left out. For a three-hour movie the pacing is generally excellent, with a good mix of exposition, character-building moments and action setpieces. The movie's effects are impressive, with CGI being held back and used only when absolutely necessary, with miniatures often employed to give physical locations a sense of presence and weight. Whilst clearly resulting from budgetary restrictions, this prevents the film getting buried under fake-looking CGI and means it still has more convincing effects than the recent first Hobbit movie, which feels a little silly.

It's difficult to pick a stand-out moment from the film. The Black Riders pursuing the Hobbits is an evocative moment, as is the confrontation on Weathertop and the flooding at the Fords of Bruinen. The outstanding sequence is probably the descent through Moria, which features both excellent character moments (such as Gandalf's conversation with Frodo when they discover that Gollum is pursuing them), humour (Pippin's encounter with a skeleton on a well), action (the battle with the cave troll in the chamber of Mazarbul) and tragic horror (Gandalf's last stand on the bridge of Khazad-dum). The whole sequence is a joy to watch.

The film missteps a little near the end: the trip to Lorien, where the Fellowship regroups after Moria, made sense in the book but in the film it dangerously comes close to killing the pace of the movie altogether. This is not helped by the somewhat bizarre characterisation of Galadriel. Jackson is to be commended for trying to make the longueur work, but ultimately it feels like it's delaying the film's climax too much at the moment it should be ramping up towards it. Fortunately, in the cinematic edition it's a fairly brief sequence. Events culminate in the epic battle on Amon Hen, with Sean Bean delivering a stand-out performance during Boromir's last stand and Sean Astin's Sam getting his first notable moments in the film's cliffhanger ending.

The movie's success is furthered by some truly remarkable production design and the quite astonishing soundtrack by Howard Shore, which must rank as one of the finest movie soundtracks of all time.

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (*****) remains, twelve years on, the finest fantasy movie ever made. The writing, acting and effects work all combine and work in tandem with one another to produce something very special, something that Peter Jackson has struggled to replicate ever since. The film is available now in the UK (DVD, Blu-Ray) and USA (DVD, Blu-Ray).

Note on the Extended Edition: In 2002, the film was reissued as an Extended Edition with approximately 30 minutes of additional footage integrated into the movie. These extra sequences include (amongst many others) an expanded opening sequence about Hobbits, additional scenes at Bilbo's party (reintroducing the Sackville-Bagginses from the book), additional combat scenes on Amon Hen and a major extension of the Lorien sequence. The Extended Edition is remarkably well-integrated with the structure of the existing film and gives new information that is useful for the sequels (such as the gift-giving sequence at Lorien). However, it does also expand on the film's weakest elements, with more screentime for Celeborn and Lorien overall. Whilst this does adversely affect pacing, it is more than made up for by the strength of new scenes earlier on. As a result, the Extended Edition (*****) retains the score of the cinematic cut. It is also available now in the UK (DVD, Blu-Ray) and USA (DVD, Blu-Ray).

Trailer for THE HOBBIT: THE DESOLATION OF SMAUG

The first trailer for the second Hobbit movie, The Desolation of Smaug, has been unveiled:

The film will be released on 13 December this year.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

Many years ago, the dwarves of Erebor, the Lonely Mountain, were driven from their home by Smaug, last of the great dragons. Thorin Oakenshield, the grandson of the last King of Erebor, has vowed to reclaim his home and called upon the dwarven clans of Middle-earth to aid him. Rebuffed, he instead plans a daring raid of a few chosen dwarves to slay Smaug whilst he sleeps. To aid them, Gandalf the Grey has promised to recruit a skilled burglar: Bilbo Baggins, a hobbit of the Shire. Their journey will take them through forests and caverns, all the while being tracked by an old enemy of Thorin's...

An Unexpected Journey is the first movie in a trilogy based on J.R.R. Tolkien's 1937 novel, The Hobbit. That's Tolkien's short novel which, by word-count, is just under a fifth of the length of The Lord of the Rings. There's been enormous controversy about director Peter Jackson's decision to split The Hobbit into three three-hour films, with a fear that there simply isn't enough story to warrant it and this will result in padding. That is the threat that constantly hangs over the film and to be fair, it mostly avoids it by making a major change: Jackson has decided to show in full Gandalf and the White Council's side-story to confront and destroy the 'Necromancer' of Dol Guldur (a storyline that takes place off-page in the novel). Whilst also controversial amongst fans, it does give Jackson a rich vein of story to mine to add to proceedings, but how successful this will be remains to be seen (this subplot is only really started in the film).

The movie opens with the older Bilbo (still played by Ian Holm) writing an account of his adventure for Frodo and narrating the destruction of the human town of Dale and the neighbouring dwarven mountain-city of Erebor by Smaug. We then have the traditional opening from the novel, with thirteen dwarves and the wizard Gandalf turning up on Bilbo Baggins's doorstep to recruit him for an adventure. By the time the young Bilbo (Martin Freeman) agrees to join the quest, a rather surprising forty minutes has passed. This sequence risks interminability, but Jackson takes advantage of the time to introduce the thirteen dwarves and give them some character traits missing from the source material. James Nesbitt's Bifur in the somewhat cynical joker of the pack, whilst Fili and Kili are the over-eager young guns out to impress their older peers. Dwalin is the bruiser and Balin the wise old - and somewhat pedantic - sage of the group (Ken Stott is excellent in the role). Bombur is fat and little more than that. The real impact is made at this stage by Richard Armitage as Thorin Oakenshield. Armitage is charismatic and has steely resolve and presence in his role, and is the standout performance of the movie (and, dare I say it, impresses more than even Viggo Mortensen as Aragorn in the original trilogy).

As well as showing the Necromancer stuff on-screen, Jackson has made some other changes to the story to increase the dramatic weight of events. Thorin now has his own nemesis, a mighty orcish warrior whose arm he cut off in battle. This warrior, long-thought dead, has returned and is now chasing down Thorin and his band (a bit like Lurtz in the movie version of Fellowship of the Ring, but a lot smarter and more continuously present). It's another change that I think some won't like, but as a dramatic device it worked fairly well at introducing some tension to the film. However, what was really distracting is that this orc has the exact same skin tone and texture as the Engineers in Prometheus and is likewise gigantic. His story arc is left unfinished at the end of the film, so we can assume he will return in the sequel (rather cleverly, as it provides a potentially better way of explaining a subplot in that film than Tolkien was able to do in the book).

Elsewhere the film feels a lack of cohesion: the Necromancer plot has little to do immediately with Thorin's quest, so every time we cut away to Radagast the Brown (a great performance by the ex-Doctor Who Sylvester McCoy) trying to resuscitate hedgehogs (!) or Gandalf discussing backplot with Saruman and Galadriel for what feel like nineteen hours, the movie flags. In fact, the dwarves get so bored of Rivendell (missed opportunity: someone saying, "On second thoughts, let's not go to Rivendell. 'Tis a silly place,") they just up and randomly leave. Once the dwarves are back on the road together and causing mayhem, the film perks up and more fun is had, even if sometimes accompanied by some unconvincing CGI.

The scenes in the goblin caves in the Misty Mountains are entertaining, but also daft. Barrie Humphries as the Goblin King works rather better than most were likely expecting (and there's a humourous nod to Gandalf's "You shall not pass!" moment from the original trilogy), but the extended battle-and-escape sequence is too slapstick to really present much tension. This contrasts to the successful scene where Bilbo meets Gollum (Andy Serkis, on fire as always) and acquires the Ring, which is brilliantly acted by both parties and features some nice tonal variations from comedy to menace and back again.

Overall, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (***½) can be called a qualified success. It has some big problems that Jackson has not been able to overcome: the storyline is too slight to sustain three hours and even with the addition of extra storylines and characters, there are some scenes which feel like wheel-spinning for the sake of it (most notably at Rivendell). There is also a near-omnipresent use of CGI in almost every scene of the movie. The original trilogy worked best when the camera was allowed to film natural landscapes or when miniatures were used to depict locations and give them a sense of reality and weight. Here, CGI is much more freely employed, often with less regard for hiding the fact it is CGI. In particular, there is a dearth of truly awesome shots of the countryside of New Zealand in all its glory compared to the original trilogy: here, even many of the landscape shots have been bathed in CGI until they glow with lens-flare. Even in 2D and at 24fps, the film has a 'faker' sheen across it than the original films, which sometimes distracts.

Fortunately, Peter Jackson has learned from the mistakes of George Lucas and has remembered to include plenty of character moments to keep things more real. Armitage is awesome, as previously mentioned, but it's Martin Freeman's performance as Bilbo which anchors the movie. His character arc (and Thorin's, which develops in tandem) is well-handled and Freeman nails this icon in a way he didn't manage with Arthur Dent (in the disappointing Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy movie). These character and thematic moments are less-successfully handled than in the original trilogy, but still give the film some dramatic weight and tension that keeps things interesting.

The film is on general release now and will be released on DVD and Blu-Ray - twice over - in 2013.