And - even odder - Barry Humphries! Hello possums.Apparently you have to wait for part 3 of The Hobbit before it gets interesting."Unexpected" is right, for a couple of reasons. Peter Jackson, the man who brought Lord Of The Rings to the big screen to eardrum-shattering acclaim 10 years ago, is now taking just the same approach to Tolkien's much slighter, slimmer children's book The Hobbit. It's getting expanded into three movie episodes of which this whoppingly long film is the opener. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Production year: 2011 Country: Rest of the world Cert (UK): 12A Runtime: 169 mins Directors: Peter Jackson Cast: Aidan Turner, Andy Serkis, Benedict Cumberbatch, Billy Connolly, Cate Blanchett, Christopher Lee, Elijah Wood, Evangeline Lilly, Hugo Weaving, Ian Holm, Ian McKellen, Lee Pace, Luke Evans, Martin Freeman, Orlando Bloom, Richard Armitage, Sir Ian McKellen, Stephen Fry More on this filmSo Tolkien's gentle tale is going to be a triple box-office bonanza, occupying the same amount of space as the mighty Rings epic, an effect achieved by pumping up the confrontations, opening out the backstory and amplifying the ambient details, like zooming in on a Google Middle Earth.The second unexpected point is the look of the thing. Jackson has pioneeringly shot The Hobbit in HFR, or High Frame Rate: 48 frames a second, as opposed to the traditional 24, giving a much higher definition and smoother "movement" effect. But it looks uncomfortably like telly, albeit telly shot with impossibly high production values and in immersive 3D. Before you grow accustomed to this, it feels as if there has been a terrible mistake in the projection room and they are showing us the video location report from the DVD "making of" featurette, rather than the actual film.
Nicola Howard ● 5020d