Review of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012) by Shawn S — 05 Jan 2015

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey marks the start of a 3 year, 3 movie adventure through Middle Earth. Set years before the Lord of the Rings, the Hobbit follows the main protagonist Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman), a well known character to fan of The Lord of the Rings. While enjoying himself in typical hobbit fashion he is greeted by an all too familiar wizard, Gandalf (Ian Mckellen) which starts him on the journey of a lifetime. This movie revolves around what would be a small and rather less interesting part of the book of the same name. This movie's focus is more on character motivations and introductions more so then actual story progression. Besides a few encounters with orcs and a rather humorous battle with some trolls the movies is fairly low key. The one shining gem in this movie is Bilbo's encounter with Gollum in the goblin caves. They engage in a battle of wits by telling one another riddles which Bilbo must win in order to survive.

The casting for the film is a very tricky subject. On one hand there are 13 different dwarves, plus Bilbo and Gandalf in the traveling in the Company of Thorin Oakenshield. Let us not forget about the villains and countless allies they meet along the way. At times the sheer amount of characters can get overwhelming and it can become difficult to tell them apart. On the other hand they did a great job shifting their focus to only a few characters to make things easier for the audience. The dwarf King Thorin Oakenshield(Richard Armitage), Kili (Dean O'gorman) along with Bilbo and Gandalf seem to be the primary focus in this film, as they most likely will continue to be throughout the trilogy. They were all intelligently cast and entered into their roles very well. The main focus of course is given to Martin whose portrayal of Bilbo Baggins is both unique and iconic. He fell into his role with ease and seemed incredibly comfortable. His interaction with Gollum becomes the keystone of this film. A scene that on paper may seem incredibly difficult to get right was masterfully performed and well shot; this is of course in huge part to Martin's incredible performance as Bilbo as well as Andy Serkis' reprisal as Gollum. Not all scenes and characters however are at this level of quality. The motivations of the main antagonist Azog for example are not well defined, nor are his somehow mystical abilities to hunt down and find the dwarfs wherever they may go in all of Middle Earth.

The biggest issue this movie faces is the sheer length of it. The source material for the movies, even including the appendices is very short. It seems like hours before we even manage to leave the shire and several more before the company "fights" in the final battle sequence of the film. It is very clear that the movie is full of filler material and fluff to fit the content they have into three lengthy films. Not all the scenes are bad of course. There are many great encounters within the film but it sometimes feels like the audience must wait forever to get there. All this slow waiting of course makes for a rollercoaster in the pacing department. It is incredibly inconsistent, ripe with moments of both dullness and excitement.

Another major downside is what appears to be director Peter Jackson's new favorite love, CGI. There is so many instances of CGI and animation in this movie that you may sometimes forget you are watching a live action film. In the Lord of the Rings trilogy Jackson relied less on CGI and more on camera tricks, scale models and a huge number of extras to accomplish the final product. Here it seems the animators took over each one of these roles. Don't get me wrong, there is nothing necessarily wrong with animation and CGI, but the overuse of such technology ruins the experience because it doesn't always seem to correspond to the reality of the film. I can't completely punish Jackson for his use of computer animation however. The trolls, stone giants and eagles are very well animated and show a completely realistic and impressive use of such technology, if only the animations were so well done the rest of the film. The goblin king, some of the wargs, as well as several chase sequences through the goblin caves are completely unbelievable and don't seem to be based in any sort of consistent reality. For a movie with a budget this size, this is simply unacceptable.

Let's not however assume that everything about this movie is bad. With the great scenes do happen, the scenery is simply outstanding and the wonderful soundtrack once again composed by Howard Shore, is stunning. There are plenty of moments of beauty and wonder in this film. It may not necessarily live up to the expectation set by Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy but it is far from a bad film. The sheer scale of the film alone makes it worth the experience. While there are many areas in which the film could improve I still consider it a good film and would rate it a 6/10.