The Hobbit

The Hobbit

Among some fantastic birthday presents was this one:

Not just anywhere tickets. BFI IMAX tickets. From DLL. We went today. If you liked the Lord of the Rings films (and I did) there's nothing not to like. It is subtly different. The humour is more robust but less frequent, the story unfolds more slowly, and there's more of a dark edge. That's the opposite way around to the books, if I remember rightly. I've not re-read The Hobbit since childhood.

The Hitchhikers' Guide bloke (Martin Freeman) is a great Bilbo. He does a really good job. I don't know whether it was Elijah Wood or the character of Frodo, but I was starting to get real compassion fatigue with all the neuroses on display in Lord of the Rings at times, and this bloke is much better. Ian Holm's in there as his older self, at the very beginning, too.

I should explain that I hit compassion fatigue early. My compassion stamina is very, very low. In athletic terms, imagine a sprinter. A sprinter that hits the marathon runner's wall. After ten yards. That's where my compassion fatigue turns to compassion exhaustion. Before the third there in there, there, there. So it could be just me.

James Nesbitt, who deserves eternal damnation and universal loathing (he's a United fan) is a dwarf. There's a fat, ginger dwarf whose beard splits in two then joins together again just above his navel. I don't think he has a line of dialogue. He just stuffs himself. He must specialise in non-speaking / plenty of eating roles. Ian McKellen's Gandalf again, hidden behind masses of beard and hair, as is Christopher Lee as Saruman. I wondered whether the casting people had thought about their advanced ages, but as DLL said, with all that hair and beards, they could be anyone, really.

Barry Humphries is the Great Goblin, and the CGI character looks much like Humphries might on a very, very bad morning.

The cinema is superb. Built on a 'sunken traffic island', which I think is architect-speak for a big roundabout, on some of the busiest routes in London, and just four metres above the Waterloo and City tube line (the 'drain' that shuttles between Waterloo and Bank); and built on some anti-vibration bearings that render traffic and a train every two minutes inaudible, the cinema has the biggest screen in the country. The biggest 3D glasses, too. 500 Mr Magoos entranced.

Excellent late lunch afterwards, too. Ping Pong dim sum. Google them. They do all you can eat Sundays. Delicious.

Thanks DLL.