#18 The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012)

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012)

PG-13

Running time: 2 hours 49 minutes (Standard Edition) / 3 hours 2 minutes (Extended Edition)

Distributor: Warner Bros. Pictures

Director: Peter Jackson

Cast: Martin Freeman, Ian Holm, Ian McKellen, Richard Armitage, Graham McTavish, Ken Stott, Aidan Turner, Dean O’Gorman, Mark Hadlow, Jed Brophy, Adam Brown, John Callen, Peter Hambleton, William Kircher, James Nesbitt, Stephen Hunter, Cate Blanchett, Hugo Weaving, Christopher Lee, Sylvester McCoy, Elijah Wood, Andy Serkis, Manu Bennett, Lee Pace, Benedict Cumberbatch, Barry Humphries. John Rawls, Bret McKenzie, Kiran Shah, Jeffrey Thomas, Michael Mizrahi.

Synopsis

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey follows title character Bilbo Baggins, who is swept into an epic quest to reclaim the lost Dwarf Kingdom of Erebor, which was long ago conquered by the dragon Smaug. Approached out of the blue by the wizard Gandalf the Grey, Bilbo finds himself joining a company of thirteen dwarves led by the legendary warrior Thorin Oakenshield. Although their goal lies to the East and the wastelands of the Lonely Mountain, first they must escape the goblin tunnels, where Bilbo meets the creature that will change his life forever... Gollum. Here, alone with Gollum, on the shores of an underground lake, the unassuming Bilbo Baggins not only discovers depths of guile and courage that surprise even him, he also gains possession of Gollum's "precious" ...a simple, gold ring that is tied to the fate of all Middle-earth in ways Bilbo cannot begin to know.

Review
I gotta admit, all the hype and buzz surrounding this epic ‘LOTR’ prequel is no doubt excessively built and promoted. Thing is, people tend to compare this one to Jackson’s highly acclaimed original Middle-Earth trilogy, which completely makes no sense at all considering the very different nature exhibited by both storyline. While ‘LOTR’ is grounded to be one of the greatest dark fantasy epics ever to be brought to the silver screen, ‘The Hobbit’, much as honest and down-to-Earth as its central protagonist, is no where near the scale. Beneath all the controversies involving the film’s use of 48FPS frame rate and various technical adversities during the shooting, Peter Jackson had managed to craft out a fine piece of adventure flick. Beautiful New Zealand landscapes, enchanting special effects, epic film score and magnificent performances especially by McKellen and Serkis, these may be the essence of ‘The Hobbit’. However, the main problem regarding ‘The Hobbit’ is that it feels really tiresome, much like a chore to me, to stand through the very lazy pacing of the story. I mean, putting out the 300-page prequel in a trilogy isn’t the brightest choice around to go with especially if you compare, let’s say, the amount of source materials plus story complexities, to the original ‘LOTR’ trilogy. This one really should better off being a stand-alone movie instead of getting a franchise-milking treatment. There are parts where you’ll find to be something unnecessarily churned out from the book all for the sake of prolonging the running time, or, of course, creating an entire prequel trilogy for the big bucks. Anyhow, ’The Hobbit’ fares as a rather long highway-avoiding bus ride back into Middle-Earth. ‘The Hobbit’ is faithful to the original material, but somehow it undermines the very foundation of the adventure prequel by breaking it up into a draggy three-part series.

Rating
3/5 Stars