Have a good long look at the below image and I mean, not just a matter of seconds look, I mean look at it like Brian Sewell, the world’s poshest art critic would and come up with some elegant witty banter about it;

Now in HD…..

You decided to read on did you? Are you sure you want to do so, considering how amazing that image above is? Go on, best to go back and have another good long hard stare at it. Maybe while having a nice cup of tea too.

Do that for about 2 and half hours.

Congratulations! You have just simulated what watching The Hobbit: An unexpected Journey is like. The colour beige in cinematic form. Such a loaded statement isn’t it? The kind that drives various internet trolls ablaze with the potential insults about your mum and the ways they will now rape and kill you.

But before the digital warriors come forth to defend the movie’s honour as being a masterpiece and I don’t what I’m talking about, let’s sprinkle some context onto the situation. After which, you may then send the death threats and rape messages.

I tried.

I really did.

I had never read the books before, nor had any real interest in the whole series by Mr.Tolkien in the first place, it was simply one of those things which had passed me by during the whimsical times of my youth. It really only came to attention with the first Lord of the Rings film, released back in 2001 to great fanfare. So many of my friends had insisted that we caught one of the first showings that very weekend and so we did.

I fell asleep. 4 times and was snoring at one point that I was elbowed quite violently to wake up. I don’t know what it was even now that caused the wave of narcolepsy to befall myself, never the less, the events of the film are hard to remember even now. It just failed to hold my attention. The only thing I do recall is that when something truly good started to happen, the film ended.

I couldn’t help but notice you’re paying too much for your car insurance….

From what I watched I gathered the following happens; an old Bilbo Baggins writes about some fun he had when he was younger while the bloke from the Lord of the Ring Trilogy makes a nice appearance for probably continuity.

Long before Bilbo’s adventure actually began, there was a dwarf king who did good stuff, but liked shiny things and apparently went mad. A dragon comes along because it also likes shiny stuff and forces the dwarves away from their mountain home.

Some people watched all this and then for some reason wandered off instead of helping the dwarves which becomes a plot point later.

Meanwhile back at the lodge, sorry in the Shropshire, we now see Bilbo Baggins as Martin Freeman, generally having an easy life. Let’s be fair after what happened in Sherlock, he needed some time off.

Anyway, along comes Gandalf talking about some adventure and young Bilbo basically says bollocks to that. Later for some reason, a load of dwarves show up and help themselves to lots of food, with Gandalf also turning up.

Turns out old Gandalf’s really wants Bilbo to be a burglar because dragons don’t know how he smells. It appears these dwarves want to retake the place with the giant dragon in, which got to be fair, unless they had a few dozen helicopters with miniguns, and some tanks, will probably fail.

Bilbo says no like a rational sane person and the next day, he’s left alone finally to continue his life and I would imagine that’s the point most people’s story would end. Go to the butchers, pick up a steak and then have a nap after lunch. But for some reason he changes his mind, and runs after the dwarves and Gandalf. Which is one of the most strange things which cannot be explained, given the fact all he wanted the night before, was to get rid of everyone out of his house.

Wonder if they have heard of hailo?

The next thing, they are wandering around the place for quite a long time, getting captured by various different creatures who talk about various things for a bit. Then they end up with a happy go lucky scamp who again just wants to wish harm upon them.

Gollum turns up and we get to see the Ring again. Then we have a chat with more people from the first Lord of the Rings and then just again as it start getting interesting when they reach where the naughty dragon is, the film once again ends. Seriously, it’s almost as if they are just redoing the same thing as they did the first time, just they used a different book this time.

How they have managed to stretch this out over again another three long films is beyond explanation. From what is known, the book is not even that long and therefore you could argue that you could get through all the major plot points within the one, well edited concise movie which would leave closure for something which is hugely popular and has done very well at the box office.

But where’s the money / sense in that?

Meh, seen worse hanging outside Tesco in Hammersmith….

The Hobbit: An expected Journey certainly unexpected in the sheer amount of endless padding. Where we see endless amounts of panning shots of people walking around New Zealand over and over again in between the few good points where perhaps it would have been better to just have those in to maintain some form of pace other than sleepwalking.

Truth be told, I was only able to watch about an hour and a half before my mind couldn’t take any more and it needed a break. Then after a while, then you could continue to the end.

Now, it’s not all bad here for sure. Andy Serkis, pretty much shows why he’s worth the motion capture money he commands as Gollum, much like he has done previously. The effects are very well done and at times you get the sense some real thought went into the characterisation from the source material.

The amount of quality actors on display raises the bar on the production for sure, if it wasn’t for the likes of Ian Mckellen, whom I did keep wondering when he is again going to wage war for Mutants, I would have turned off altogether a lot sooner.

It’s true, there’s a sale on at DFS!

But the fact remains, it was ultimately a dull affair that could have easily done with half of it being thrown in the bin, thus leaving us all with a far tighter and perhaps more enjoyable experience. At present, once again there is no real compelling reason to watch the next two in the series.

Now ordinarily, this is where the blogging would end and the fan flaming of my old bitter flatulent body would be begin. But here is going to be some food for thought on this;

Perhaps a change of format would have actually been better, for both Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit. Instead of several films all 12 years long, it would have been better that each part was a TV mini series spaced out so then they could spend better amounts of time flushing out more why things happen the way they did, without you reaching to the bookshelf to look up the source material.

Hell, HBO managed to make Game of Thrones in such a way and each episode has so much going for it, you come back for more without breaking a sweat, and that again is set in a fantasy world with dragons, just has more messed up things going on.

Do that, and it would be well worth a revisit.