Thanks to my awesome full time employer, I got to see an ever-so-slightly advance copy of "The Hobbit" today. Plus I got a free glass of wine AND a free pizza AND a free peanut butter milkshake! Blogging retirement is AWESOME!
Anyway, here's my very quick review: It was good!
Here's my marginally longer review:
A little slow here and there, but it definitely held my interest. There are some fun set pieces with great fights, the portrayal of the Riddle Game is very good, and the story moves along well enough that I didn't feel cheated like I thought I would when I heard they were stretching it into three movies.
Having said that, I always felt like part of the charm of the Hobbit was that it was a small story that didn't bother us with all of the Big Goings On of the power players in Middle Earth. This version chucks a fair bit of that in favor of bringing in all the backstory with the battle against the Necromancer that Tolkien largely left out of the original narrative. I'm not sure I agree with that decision, but since it was made and this is the story Jackson chooses to tell, I do think he tells it well.
I'd give it a definite thumbs-up!
