Definitely an "Unexpected Journey"

"The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" was a good movie. That probably sums it up well. The originality of the Lord of the Rings movies having worn off of the general public, the movie was good, but not great. I was very impressed with the acting, but disappointed with the portrayal of Radagast (exactly what were they smoking when they decided to do that?). Richard Armitage as Thorin and our new Bilbo (Martin Freeman) were wonderful - as were LOTR vets such as Ian McKellan and Cate Blanchet, but there was nothing that would make this film stand out as the best of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy.  Worse, there were too many side stories to follow than the "Hobbit" usually contains.  I know that much of the material came from the LOTR appendices and from the "Silmarillion", but the inclusion of that material to essentially make more money did not mean that this was a better movie.  I could have seen them making it into a two-movie set, but not three!  Not all is lost, but it's the worst of the Tolkien book-to-movie series.