“THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY” Movie Review. The LULL before the STORM.

“THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY” PRESS PREVIEW

It’s a case of much ado about everything.

Everyone has his differing opinion in regard to “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey”.

Hence I’ll keep this Review short and sweet to spare readers from the long overture, the tedious technicalities that come with the making of this epic.

Here’s a case in point which follows the proverbial adage that good wine needs no bush.

Because film director Peter Jackson requires no formal introduction.

His  latest offering “Hobbit” is a prequel to his immensely successful “Lord of the Rings”, allowing us to set foot again in the fictional world of the Middle Earth.

The LOTR trilogy was produced in 3 parts, the journey starting from 2001 and culminating in 2003.

Hold your breath, that was 9 years ago, long before the advent of the 3D stereoscopy.

Nearly $3 billion in worldwide grosses had been collected on this franchise.

Now “Hobbit” 2012, the almost-three-hour prequel has  arrived after the many years of waiting. Interest has since waned.

The Hobbit follows the story of Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman), a reluctant hobbit who has been recruited by the wizard Gandalf (Ian McKellen) to join him together with a motley group of rowdy dwarves to rescue their Lonely Mountain home from an evil dragon.

The quest involves encounters with trolls and orcs, visits with elves and Gollum (Andy Serkis).

The entire visual extravaganza was shot at 48 frames per second (twice the normal speed) as Peter Jackson insisted that the traditional 24 frames format has a primitive dressing.

 Striving beyond perfection, the double speed evokes a sheen of “surrealistic fake-ness” in key scenes.

 ”The Hobbit” may be an entertaining effort given the advances in digital animation and faster projection speed, but the inspiration has diminished, and it hardly enthralls the way its predecessors did.

Followers of the LOTR  movies will still continue to find plenty to rave about.

Non-followers may be bored by the overdrawn plot, the chaotic assembly of ghastly creatures and 15 main characters, some of them could have been omitted in the already complicated plot.

You simply can’t please everybody.

Right.