Peter Jackson's The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey was surprisingly entertaining for me especially since I never saw any of the Lord of the Ring movies. I also liked that the story was explained for novices like me and I was able to follow along and look forward to watching the trilogy movies. The story starts off with Bilbo Baggins, a Hobbit, sixty years in the future writing his story about his unexpected adventure with Gandolf the Wizard and thirteen dwarves who are trying to reclaim their lost dwarf kingdom of Eredor. It was overtaken by Smaug the dragon many years ago. The new dwarf king, Thorin, who has unresolved issues with the elves for deserting his people many years ago and a strong desire to regain the dwarves home, leads this group through Middle Earth where they run into many dangers along the way. One of my favorite scenes is with the goblins. The visual effects of that scene was fantastic and of course the cinematography was great throughout the movie. With so many shots done aerially and the movement of the camera, looking at some of the scenes was a bit dizzying and some scenes can make you feel a bit uneasy. The beginning is long but that's Peter Jackson's signature. However, once you get pass that, it is a fun movie. The Hobbit, An Unexpected Journey is definitely worth it's weight in gold literally.
