10 Movies With Great Second Halves (But Awful Firsts)

Peter Jackson's Hobbit trilogy is perhaps cinema's all-time testament to both filmmaker indulgence and tireless studio greed - a three-film project which needed no more than two movies at absolute most.

Eyebrows were immediately raised, then, when the first entry alone - The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey - clocked in at a beefy 169 minutes, and to the surprise of few, the film turned out to be a wildly distended slog.

The biggest problem with An Unexpected Journey is just how damn long Jackson takes to get us out of the Shire - it's almost 45 minutes before the titular journey actually really gets going.

But even then, Jackson devotes masses of time to moments which took up merely a page or two in the source material, and basically indulges every single one of his cinematic fancies, pacing be-damned.

Things pick up considerably at the mid-way point when Bilbo (Martin Freeman) and co. arrive at Rivendell, seguing into the movie's easy highlight - the riddle game between Bilbo and Gollum (Andy Serkis).

There was absolutely a pacy two-hour movie possible here, achieved simply by slicing the first half in two.