The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012) Review

Time: 169 Minutes
Age Rating: Fantasy Violence
Cast:
Ian McKellen as Gandalf the Grey
Martin Freeman as Young Bilbo Baggins
Richard Armitage as Thorin Oakenshield II
James Nesbitt as Bofur
Ken Stott as Balin
Cate Blanchett as Galadriel
Ian Holm as Bilbo Baggins
Christopher Lee as Saruman the White
Hugo Weaving as Elrond
Elijah Wood as Frodo Baggins
Andy Serkis as Gollum
Director: Peter Jackson

Once upon a time, the Kingdom of Erebor in the Lonely Mountain was taken from the dwarfs by the evil dragon Smaug. One day, the young Hobbit Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman) is unexpectedly visited by the wizard Gandalf the Grey (Ian McKellan) and twelve homeless dwarfs led by their former king Thorin (Richard Armitage) and decided to vanquish Smaug and recover Erebor and their treasure. Bilbo joins the company in an unexpected journey through dangerous lands of the Middle-Earth where they have to fight against Trolls, Orcs and other magic creatures.

After 9 years after The Lord of the Rings franchise, Peter Jackson returns back to the fantastical world of Middle Earth. A lot of the good things from middle earth are here, the special effects, the soundtrack, the action scenes and epic story. However there are definitely some noticeable flaws in this movie: the story is a little slow and feels a little drawn out and a lot of the characters weren’t very developed. I still enjoyed the movie but at the time of release it was a little disappointing.

The movie did seem to drag quite a bit, especially near the beginning in Biblo’s house. Once he leaves with the dwarves and Gandalf however the story picks up. Another problem I have, is the fact that I didn’t really find many differences with the dwarves. I felt that a lot of the dwarves weren’t that developed, with the exception of Thorin. They were more developed in the next movies though.

Martin Freeman is really good as Bilbo, he’s very convincing as a younger Ian Holm from the original LOTR movies. Freeman has such wit and humor, making Bilbo a fun character. Ian McKellan returning as Gandalf the Grey was also really good, and had a lot of good moments. Richard Armitage played Thorin, the king of the dwarves was also gave a standout performance. It is hard for me to remember many of the other dwarves unfortunately, they didn’t really get many moments to shine individually, I didn’t even remember their names. However on repeat watches, I will say that all the actors here do a good job with what they had. There is a character in this movie called Radaghast, for some people he is the Jar Jar Binks of this movie, while others don’t really have that much of a problem with him. I’m sort of in the middle, he’s fine but it wasn’t a performance that I loved. A stand out performance was Andy Serkis in his motion capture work as Gollum. It was neat seeing Gollum return and his scene with Bilbo is by far the best in the movie.

The special effects are as good as the previous movies. The designs of the creatures are great as usual. I previously mentioned Andy Serkis as Gollum but it really needs emphasizing how good the motion capture was, I would even go so far as to say that it’s better than in Lord of the Rings. The action scenes were done quite well as was the previous movies. When it comes to the 48 frames per second, the action scenes were made even better but whenever it is just people talking like at the beginning at Bilbo’s house, it feels disjointed because it feels like it is sped up, even though it really isn’t. Howard Shore returns to conduct the score and it was great as always. Everything definitely feels like it’s in the same universe.

Even if the film didn’t really keep my attention the whole time, it was great to return to middle earth. The sequel, The Desolation of Smaug was even better and even fixed all its problems that I had with the first. Out of all the Middle Earth movies it’s my least favourite but I still like it quite a bit.

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