Copious Notes

Ken Stott as Balin, John Callen as Oin, William Kircher as Bifur, Richard Armitage as Thorin Oakenshield and Graham McTavish as Dwalin in €œThe Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. © Warner Bros. Pictures photos by James Fisher.

When I was reviewing movies, I always tried to avoid reading other reviews until I had seen the film and written my own.

Since we have retired in-house movie reviewing here at the Herald-Leader, I am more inclined to read — no, devour — reviews to help me make my movie-going choices.

But I was happy that I never got to reviews of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey until after seeing the movie. Like a lot of critics, I liked the movie but thought it was at least an hour too long and came across as part one of a book hacked into three pieces.

But when it comes to its high-frame-rate presentation, which most critics panned, my thumbs are up.

Director Peter Jackson on the set of “The Hobbit,” which he filmed in a high-frame-rate format.

The Hobbit is the first feature film to be released in high frame rate, or HFR, in which the film is shown at twice the standard speed of 24 frames a second, the industry standard for about 80 years. The technology was developed nearly three ­decades agobut languished in specialty projects until director Peter Jackson embraced it for his return to Middle-earth. The idea is that the quicker frame rate, more common to video, ­creates a much more ­realistic look, and a more visceral experience for the viewer.

In some reading I did about The Hobbit, Jackson said that was how it was intended to be seen: in high-frame-rate 3-D.

If that’s how Jackson intended it, I was going to give it a try. And it was mesmerizing.

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