The Hobbit (2012)

I have seen The Hobbit twice, first on opening day and the second over Christmas.  Both times I was annoyed by the beginning.  The movie opens with Bilbo (played Ian Holms) at his writing desk composing A Hobbit's Tale or There and Back Again.  Personally, I think it would have been great if they just went from there into The Hobbit, but no, the had to bring Frodo in (played by Elijah Wood) creating a "behind the scene" behind the closed hobbithole of Bag End, before Frodo runs off to met Gandalf (played by Ian McKellen), forming a connecting between the Lord of the Rings Trilogy and The Hobbit.  I get that, but for some reason it still irked me.

Once I got over that, I really enjoyed it.  Bilbo's story begins with a "chance meeting" of Bilbo (played by Martian Freeman) and Gandalf followed by unexpected guests in the form of dwarfs.  I thought they looked like a grown-up version of Snow White's dwarfs and wasn't a big fan of their singing (although I always skip over songs/poems in books).  Otherwise, I thought they were a great comic relieve and very likable.

So Bilbo, wakes up late in Hobbit fashion and rushes after the wizard and dwarfs to join their quest for treasure.  After getting over a forgotten handkerchief, Bilbo and his new found friends run across a trio of trolls who decide Bur-Hobbit would be a great appetizer to a main course of Dwarfs.  While all the other dwarfs squirm in their ties, Bilbo stalls for time, suggesting said dwarfs would taste better skinned as they all have worms.  By stalling for time, he keeps the trolls talking until the sun rises and are turned to stone, thus gaining cred with his companions. 

We met Radagast and he is completely bad ass (as my brother says) who couldn't like a guy who is one with furry creatures.

Later, Dwarf, Wizard and Hobbit are separated like mother and child at a supermarket, Bilbo just happens upon the Misty Mountains.  Everybody who is familiar with LOTR knows that Gollum resides there with the One Ring.  Gollum. like in the LOTR Trilogy is both frieghtning and amusing.  threating to eat the hobbitess whole one moment and playing a game of riddles the next.  Bilbo, who has already found the ring but unaware of its powers plays a cheat asking the creature what it has in his pocket (the One Ring) and upon Gollum's defeat manages to escape, but that is not before Gollum notices his precious is missing and threatens to gain revenge against the nasty hobbitess. 

After, returning to the group on his own accord and saving the chief dwarf from a nasty death by Orc is accepted into the group and not a bother at all.  Continuing on their journey until December, 2013.