I have seen An Unexpected Journey twice now, in Imax 3D and then 3D at a smaller cinema. Both times were great and as usual with the attention to detail in Peter Jackson's films, I noticed new things the second time around.
I had heard that the film was 'slow' and 'not much happened for ages' but that was proven completely wrong within the first few minutes of the film. The film length itself was long but really didn't seem that way at the time. I am also glad that the Hobbit is being made in three parts as the first film has done a good job of covering all of the more light-hearted first six chapters of the book and by the end of the film you can tell things are going to get a lot more serious!

In general the film had a very different tone to the Lord of the Rings, it wasn't as dark, with more humour, and far fewer long cinematic shots. This was expected though as Middle Earth is a very different place during the Hobbit events, there is no over-riding threat of evil from Sauron and unlike Frodo, Bildo has no idea of the dangers of his journey.

After seeing the film, the stand out scenes were Riddles in the Dark and the final Eagle scene. Martin Freeman was perfect as Bilbo and Gollum looked even more real than in the Lord of the Rings, he was frightening, funny and sad at the same time.

Overall, An Unexpected Journey is a great film, and I can't wait for the next part. The film possibly has a younger audience in mind than the LOTR trilogy, but I am hoping the mood will become more like LOTR during the second and third films as the more serious events take place.

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