The Hobbit

Looking at the list of movie titles coming out in December, this was the only deserving show to be watched, at first glance. At least that was what my dear felt. I guess from this entry onwards, I shall include the movie poster as well to make my post more colourful and less boring.

The show started off with some remnants of the starting of the Lord of the Rings, with a few seconds showing of Frodo. After all, this story was a prelude to the Lord of the Rings. From then on, it was the memory playback of Frodo's uncle, Bilbo Baggins. In a nutshell, Baggins was sort of forced into an adventure by Gandalf the Grey to accompany thirteen dwarves, led by Thorin, to reclaim their homelands, Lonely Mountains, from Smaug the dragon sixty years ago. Smaug was attracted by the massive amount of gold in the dwarves' lair, so the story said, and thus attacked them. When forced to evacuate, Thorin nursed a grudge against the elves as the latter refused to aid them at that point in time.

Thus the adventure started and the entourage encountered a group of trolls who tried to eat them, but was later turned to stone by the sunlight which shone upon them after Gandalf heroically split a big rock into two. To pour salt onto the trolls' wounds, the group plundered their hideout and thus obtaining some elven swords. The group later met up with another wizard, Radagast the Brown, who informed them of a dark force poisoning the lands. At the same time, a group of orcs were hunting the dwarves and Radagast tried to lure them away using his trusty rabbits, while the group seek refuge at the elves' hideout.

At the elves' hideout, the group found the answer to the entrance of another route into the Lonely Mountains, and they secretly set off for their journey while Gandalf was explaining the quest to the White Council. However, the group was captured by another group of orcs after they witnessed a fight between the mountains, a redundant scene in my opinion. Baggins, due to his small size and coupled with the ridiculously poor eyesight of the orcs, managed to escape by squatting and somehow found Gollum and picked up the ring which he dropped, the ring which he called the precious, the ring which was the main focus in the Lord of the Rings. After a series of riddles, Gollum realised that Baggins had gotten the ring and attacked him. By a stroke of luck, Baggins realised that the ring granted him invisibility and he used that to escape.

At the same time, by plot no jutsu, Gandalf appeared out of nowhere, by magic of course, to save the dwarves and then together they killed a path out with ridiculous and comical stunts. Maybe just like chakra, Gandalf need to recharge and could not conjure the entire group out. Anyway, after escaping the mountain orcs, they encountered the orcs who were hunting them. Thus, the group was on the run and they retreated to the trees at the edge of the cliffs. Thorin tried to attack the leader but was no match for him, and he was almost beheaded only to be stopped by Baggins' assault. Then the group was rescued by a group of eagles after Gandalf sent a distress message via a butterfly. I guess, other than being used for the butterfly effect, butterflies can travel at insane speeds too.

The eagles then dropped the group somewhere safe but in the visibility of their destination. The movie ended with the dragon rousing from his sleep.

I guess after watching Lord of the Rings, there was not much surprises in this movie. However, it was an engaging movie with moments of anxiety and anticipation peppered here and there. Enjoyable, at the very least.