The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Review

9th Dec 2012

A good decade after the Rings trilogy comes the first of three parts of the Hobbit. We’re pretty sure you have heard of it by now.

The long and short of it is that this is set before the Rings trilogy, focussing on an adventure a much younger Bilbo Baggins (here portrayed by expertly by Martin Freeman) has with Gandalf the Wizard (a returning Ian Mckellen) and a dozen or so merry Dwarves.

This marks the first of a trilogy – which has sparked much discussion as it is a leaner and lighter book. Did it need splitting in three? The answer is a resounding NO! But to the filmmakers credit they have drawn from several of the source materials by Tolkien to add backstory and weight to the characters and the history of the world in which they inhabit.

The trouble is you still come out the other end feeling that it was too long, learned very little about most of the supporting characters, and a sense of deja vu when compared to the initial LORT instalment The Fellowship of the Ring. There is a prologue, we are then start off in hobbiton where Gandalf visits. An adventure is then suggested and off we go on a long trek across various terrains. A few nasties are encountered along the way, there is a stop off at Rivendell, a treacherous walk along the side of a mounting full of falling rocks and bad weather, and then the descent and ascent to and from some mine areas and an eventual final battle outside again before the cast look onto unto the landscape at the journey still yet to come. Sound like The Fellowship? (Hell there is even Gandalf doing that darkness and loud roary voice thing he did early on in that film here again in a similar place). Well it’s a little bit to similar perhaps, and not even with half of the romanticism or excitement.

Sure there is wit, there is some decent action, but the main set pieces are merely adaptations of what we have already seen before (set after). There is of course though the appearance of Gollum in one of the better scenes of the film. Serkis once again doing what he does. As already stated Freeman is perfect casting for Bilbo Baggins. McKellen struts his stuff as the wizened wizard offering much of the pathos and humour – without ever really becoming part of the focus of the story.

Now the technical stuff: Sure Jackson directs with the same passion he did before, Howard Shore returns with a familiar score, but introducing some new themes as well as some of the familiar old ones.

The 3D is literally take your pick. If you love that sort of thing, this works as well as any other. There was one well edited use of some arrow firing, but beyond that it’s all whether you get distracted by the dimensions on screen as opposed to them actually enhancing the effect of the film.

More problematic is the 48 frames per second. This is literally like watching a well-dressed and costumed soap opera set in fantasy land. We suspect this is what will divide people the most. Sure you get great attention to the detail of faces and surfaces, but it is perhaps a little bit too real, losing a large about of the cinematic appeal. No shortage of golden lighting is going to change that. If you liked the look of the normal trailers then we suggest you see it as such. If you are a fan of beyond high definition and want your films to look like modern age TV then go for the new format. This reviewer however would rather give it a miss as it itself was more distracting than the CGI. In fact if anything it made the CGI team have to work even harder to blend in. Backgrounds look very off in certain scenes. But it all literally boils down to a cinematic film looking decidedly un-cinematic.

We may not like talking, mobile phones, kicking the backs of seats or noisy popcorn in the cinema, but damn it we want the films to look like film.

Overall despite which way you chose to watch this film it ends up very much like the bulk of its supporting cast; Light hearted, fun to be around but bloated, repetitive and going no where fast.