The Hobbit: An Unexpected Review

Let me begin by saying I loved The Lord Of The Rings. I find Return Of The King to be one of the only films I’ve ever called flawless. This movie is not LOTR, and therefore cannot be fairly compared to the other trilogy. Obviously since it is a prequel avoiding comparison will be next to impossible, but I will try my best! At most I will point out some important differences.

This film has a different tone than you might expect when walking in. It’s a very light-hearted film contrary to some of the very dark scenes shown in the trailer. Peter Jackson blew audiences away with his seamless transitions of beautiful New Zealand scenery, CGI, live action, and motion capture performances. While the same attempts are there. This film is so CGI heavy it makes itself unrealistic. The goblins, orcs - characters that were once done with make-up and live action performances are now done with CGI and it takes away from their character. I understand that Middle Earth is a fantasy world, but one thing that struck everyone so deeply about LOTR was that it was believable and human. This film does not do that. I found myself not believing in characters, and not believing in them made it hard to feel that the ones I did care for (Bilbo, Gandalf, Thorin) were in any real danger. Another problem is within the story.

There is absolutely no character development other than Bilbo and Thorin’s endeavours together. The other dwarves are all uninteresting and undeveloped. I’ve been told that this is a problem with the story and not just the film, but if this 300 page book is now 3 films I expect they use those two extra films on some damn character development. The pacing is also terribly off. While I expect this is from stretching this story out so heavily it seems that Jackson has forgotten everything he knew about storytelling. One of the only good parts of this film are the performances, and luckily it’s the important ones. Martin Freeman is phenomenal as Bilbo - I can’t imagine anyone else doing what he did. Ian McKellan returns to audiences in the role of his lifetime and he lives up to it. Richard Armitage brings a sense of menace to the dwarves (something I had yet to see) but also brings weakness and humanity to it, a truly great performance. Andy Serkis returns in his legendary role of Gollum/Smeagul and the visuals are more amazing than ever. CGI at its finest. The game of riddles between Freeman and Serkis is absolutely perfect. It’s a shame I couldn’t watch them battle for 3 hours. I would have left much happier.

It was enthralling to be back in Middle-Earth after having not been there in so long, however this is not how I wanted to be reminded of it. It was a nice attempt and I’m sure it will please fan boys and fans of the novel alike. Just know that Peter Jackson has lost his touch and he joins the ranks of George Lucas and James Cameron as veterans who no longer want to make film, but need to indulge themselves in a universe they can’t leave themselves. It’s sad.

My Rating:
6/10