I have not read the book. I have never read any Tolkien book. Somehow they are not readable to me.

I have not seen the Lord of the Rings movies, except for a few trailers.

When my son invited me to come along to watch The Hobbit “with the guys” I reluctantly consented.

With this background, I was not encumbered by expectations of the movie following the book. I didn’t even know what to expect. I just sat down and followed the story.

A long time ago there was a thriving kingdom of Dwarfs. The Dwarfs had vast treasures of gold that they had mined from their mountain. One day, a dragon came and took their kingdom away. Dragons love gold. The Dwarfs were outcast and had to find a new home.

Fast forward a few decades to the village of the Hobbits. Hobbits are little people with big feet that like to live modestly, farm the land, build little houses in hillsides, and smoke pipes in their front yards. They are not very adventurous or curious. They like it simple.

A big, powerful wizard named Gandalf appears one day in front of the Hobbit Bilbo’s house. He and a group of Dwarfs, bent on recapturing their kingdom from the dragon, hire Bilbo to help them.

They go on a long, challenging journey. Many enemies attack them. Elves (who look like humans with strange Dr. Spock ears), Orcs (degenerate and ugly humans), Trolls (further degenerate and huge humans), Wizards (think Dumbledore) and all manner of strange and mostly oversized animals. There are eagles the size of Boeing 737s and wolves the size of horses. The twelve Dwarfs, the wizard and Bilbo are defending themselves in one senseless battle after the other, killing hundreds of bad characters, getting crushed, falling off mountains, getting shot at, bludgeoned and beaten, and never end up with any scratch (think Rambo).

The senseless, repetitive and mostly contrived battles go on for hours, without much else of interest. The entire movie is one long string of violence with a few interesting passages in between. The animation is fabulous, the costumes and makeup elaborate. Most of the landscape is fairytale-like and looks artificial. But it’s supposed to be a magical world, so it works.

There is really no end to the movie, since it is the first episode of a trilogy. It ends abruptly. As I walked out I realized that the entire three-hour movie simply set us up for the next episode.

It did not want to make me go and read the book now, which I have in one of my boxes, I am sure. I also don’t know if I’ll rush to see the next sequel.

Rating: ** 1/2