Around sixty years before the events of The Lord of the
Rings trilogy a young Hobbit called Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman) was whisked
off for what became a life changing adventure. An Unexpected Journey is based on the first few chapters of J.R.R.
Tolkien’s The Hobbit but contains
almost all the highlights of the book I read as a teenager. After a tortured
pre production that included a change of writer and director, problems with
studio financing, the temporary loss of it’s central actor and location issues,
An Unexpected Journey is finally here
and even for a year which featured the likes of Prometheus, The Dark Knight Rises and So Undercover, this was the film that I’d been looking forward to
the most all year. I saw the film close to a week ago now and am only just
writing a review. Generally I’ll put pen to paper or rather finger to keyboard
within twenty-four hours of seeing a movie but my experience of An Unexpected Journey made me put off
writing in the hope of a second viewing. With Christmas around the corner and a
trip back to my hometown looming I probably won’t get to see the film again
until 2013 but will probably update my review once I have. The reason for
wanting to see it again before writing a review is because the impossible
happened; I didn’t like it.