Hobbitized by Cookies

Good but not Great

Yesterday was fun at work.  After a night spent sleeping in spurts due to the constant supervision from my wife not to sleep on the bandaged side of the head I had to sit  through an all day session of computer training on some of the new technology we’re setting up.  My fun meter was not exactly pegged.

I did have date night to look forward to and one of the movies I have looked forward to all year – The Hobbit.  I returned home to find my wife covered in cookie dough and just completing her latest round of Christmas cookie baking.  She immediately assumed a defensive position in front of the still warm cookies.  For some reason she feels the need to defend the cookies so there will be some left for my kids when they return for Christmas.  I find her faith in me appalling (not really).

The impact of all this baking and her nocturnal supervision duties was that she no longer planned on going to the movies with me.  I’m sure that if this was a dancing date she would have found the energy but Middle Earth just doesn’t do it for her.  To her credit she did realize how important this movie was to me so she was agreeable to let me go solo.  For some reason she never left me alone in the room with the cookies (Oh yee of little faith). 

I was psyched because the Lord of the Rings is my favorite movie of all time and I figured The Hobbit would be cut from the same cloth.  I really liked the movie but it did not have the same magic as LOTR.  I think it may come back to the fact that The Hobbit was a children’s tale and when you compare that with an epic fight for the world’s survival against an ultimate evil – it’s just hard to compete.

The characters are much less likable as well.  Freeman does a great job but Bilbo Baggins is just not very likable until he grows on you and that doesn’t happen until the end of the movie.  Richard Armitage, playing the dwarf king was impressive but, again, his character is not likable until the end.  This has great import for the following two movies but this film was more of setting a stage and suffered because of it.

I left the movie having enjoyed the two plus hours, dazzled by Jackson’s story telling ability, and the special effects but a little let down.  I guess that’s how movies become your personal favorites –hard to compete with.  I was hoping to re-capture the thrill I felt when I first saw LOTR and that just didn’t happen.  That kind of thrill has to sneak up on you and I was too anticipatory, still a really good movie although it did give my wife time to cryo the cookies.

Great but Mostly Unavailable
My Wife's Well Protected Cookies from Last Night