Films to see

Making a book into a film is never easy. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey makes a decent try. It works well as a film but fans of the book might be a bit disappointed, though not necessarily.

In general, there is more emphasis on the visual side than there is on the content. The upside of this is that the film looks extremely pretty and colourful. There are some nice and cleverly designed battle scenes (with the one or two obligatory cliché bits) but that probably pushes the film even further from the book because it makes certain moments way too dramatic and bordering with ridicule, and then there is no space left to explore Bilbo's character in more detail. Among other things, it is supposed to be about a small person facing big dangers and achieving great things but this is not sufficiently explored in the film.

Bilbo isn't always at the centre of the story, which we would expect since it is his tale, and at times he seems to fade too much into the metaphorical background, which makes the atmosphere of the film very far from the original book. This, however, helps to tie Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey to the Lord Of The Rings film trilogy and it makes it feel like a real prequel.

Another interesting thing to note is that, compared to the book, the importance of certain aspects of the story is amplified in the film. This may sound like a bad thing but it actually works well because it is used to foreshadow certain events and this makes the film easy to follow. Overall, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey tackled the challenges of being a film based on a book with dignity and it was a pleasurable way to spend two and a half hours.