The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman) of Bag End is content to live a nice uneventful life in the Shire when he’s visited by a wizard (Ian McKellen) and a group of dwarves who enlist his help to make a dangerous journey to recover their treasure, taken by a dragon. The ensuing odyssey, recorded in the J.R.R. Tolkien novel The Hobbit, fills a small book, but will take three movies to tell. The first, An Unexpected Journey, follows the hobbit and dwarves through the first leg of their adventures, and includes trolls, orcs, caves, magic, wolves, fire, and Gollum.

ClearPlay In Action!

There are a small number of exclamations edited in the ClearPlayed version of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, but lots of violence, including an evisceration, a beheading, severed limbs, piercing arrows, and other Middle Earth mayhem, all trimmed. The resulting movie may still be too intense for hobbit–sized kids.

Will I be bored of the Rings?…

At a running time of almost three hours, many viewers complained that Director Peter Jackson dragged out the modest story of The Hobbit to disproportionate length. As a fan of the Rings movies, I enjoyed every minute. Let your tolerance of the Lord of the Rings movies be your guide.

Marty Nabhan— ClearPlay Ring–ologist

Rated PG-13 for extended sequences of intense fantasy action violence, and frightening images; 169 min; Directed by Peter Jackson