![]() ![]() It doesn't help that the constantly sweeping visuals sometimes have the air of a supercharged computer game (an ultra-modded version of Skyrim with mountain staircases by Minecraft?) or that sequences such as a barrel ride down a river seem tailor-made for the theme park market. For all its hi-tech action sequences and handsomely mounted set pieces, you get a lot of bagginess with your Baggins, as the assembled masses march up hill and down dale, their ultimate goal still a long way off. While the sing-song reminiscing and endless tea-party pootlings of An Unexpected Journey are happily notable by their absence, the jury is still out on whether The Hobbit really needs to be strung out over nine hours of film. At the centre of it all is Martin Freeman, whose default expression of habitual bafflement (he appears to teeter perpetually on the brink of some conversational incline) is perfectly suited to the role of Bilbo Baggins – the friendly quizzicality hiding something behind the smile as he begins to comprehend both the powers and dangers of the ring. En route we meet an assortment of fantastical characters of all shapes and sizes, ranging from the Wood-elves (a surprise return by Orlando Bloom's Legolas and a newly made-up character, Evangeline Lilly's Tauriel), to the gigantic dragon Smaug, voiced (and motion-captured) by Benedict Cumberbatch, and brought to roaring life by the digital wizards at Weta. Thus we head east, through the forest of Mirkwood with its creepy pre/post-Potter spiders to the streets of Lake-town where the stench of fish hangs heavy in the Hammer-esque fog then on to the lost kingdom of Erebor, a big-screen version of the Magic Mountain fairground ride replete with slidey loops and precipitous drops aplenty. ![]()
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