Which means new movies to watch!

The Christmas holiday is almost as good as Memorial Day weekend here in the states for launching really good movies, of course during Christmas you tend to get more serious movies (as they are pushing for Oscar contention) and Memorial Day is mostly popcorn movies (meaning movies that are fun to watch but will never really get a nomination for anything) and big action and sci-fi.

This Christmas 2 movies that I have been waiting for over a year opened.  The first one is The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.  I have been a HUGE Lord of the Rings fan for a while now and I loved the Peter Jackson movies – they were fun to watch, they had a lot of action, the story and visuals were AHHHH-mazing.  They were the Star Wars trilogy for a new generation.  So when it was announced that Peter Jackson was going to do The Hobbit I was a happy girl.  Then the casting happened and I was even happier.  I am a HUGE (understatement of the year) admirer of Richard Armitage so to find out he was going to have a major part in this I was a happy happy girl.

Richard Armitage plays Thorin in The Hobbit

Back to the movie ….

I really wanted to see it in the new 48 Frames Per Second in IMAX that I’ve been hearing about – alas it was sold out (for the midnight showing) and I didn’t get a chance.  So I saw it in regular IMAX 3D and I wasn’t disappointed. 

Going in I was skeptical about all the characters they were adding into the movie, like Frodo … I mean really was it absolutely necessary to add him in?  Maybe not, but it was done well so I really didn’t mind and it serves to tie the two series together so I think it was a good call.

Without giving away spoilers, I thought the movie was paced well – to me it didn’t feel three hours long.  Yes there were some spaces where it could have been trimmed, but I didn’t mind it at all.  It was nice seeing some familiar faces (Gandalf, Frodo, Galadriel & Elrond) but what a fun ride meeting all the new ones.

Martin Freeman

Dean O’Gorman

Aidan Turner

James Nesbitt

The casting, in my opinion, is superb.  Aside from the previouly mentioned Richard Armitage, Martin Freeman as Bilbo took enough from Ian Holmes’s portrayal to liken back to the LOTR trilogy while still making the character completely his own. The dwarves (whom I cannot name without looking them up) were all fantastic – I hope that in the next 2 movies we see a little more of the ones who didn’t get a lot of airtime in this one, not that I’m complaining –Aidan Turner (whose next role is playing a were apparently, and we all knows I likes my weres) and Dean O’Gorman as Kili and Fili upped the hottie quotient and James Nesbitt was fantastic as Bofur (yeah I looked up the name of his dwarf).

I am looking forward to part 2 of the series (I just wish I didn’t have to wait a year to see it).

Tomorrow, I’ll talk about seeing Les Miserables on screen (after having seen it 8 times on stage)

Until Next Time,