The Hobbit

Cowardly glutton Bilbo Baggins is contracted by a band of dwarves to play burglar in this truncated adaptation of Tolkien's The Hobbit. Rankin/Bass's NBC TV special is lousy with folk music musing and variety show percussion, tailor-made for storybook and cassette tape merchandise. At a little under 80 minutes, this Hobbit has a contracted, episodic quality that plays nicely with the meandering pace of Tolkien's tale. Exciting characters are introduced then discarded, among them a draft of Gollum who looks like an amphibian's idea of a cuddly toy.

Japanese animation studio Topcraft, a precursor of sorts to Studio Ghibli, render the tale in a style reminiscent of British illustrator Arthur Rackham. This version of Middle Earth is beautiful. Flocculated watercolour backgrounds contrast sharply with sinewy figures covered in heavy black line work. The staging is flat, violence typically depicted as a kind of kaleidoscopic unreality in which vanquished foes dissolve into still images that careen around the screen. The Battle of Five Armies is seen from a bird's eye view - heaving, indecipherable dots clashing and collapsing like some primitive tabletop video game. There is no joy in the action, the fighting is brief, heavy with injury and regret. Unlike many takes on this particular kind of fighting fantasy, the viewer is urged to delight in the imagination that has been applied to creating this world, instead of the usual goblin stomping.