Movie Review 701: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012)

Everyone, today, in preparation for the upcoming Lord Of The Rings: The War Of The Rohirrim being released next month, we review the Hobbit trilogy, and do a second, and final reviewing of the Lord Of The Rings trilogy. Starting with The Hobbit, which Peter Jackson decided to divide into three films for some reason, let’s first travel to the fantasy world of Middle Earth, beginning with The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey!

Plot: Based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s classic novel, The Hobbit, and set sixty years before the events of Lord Of The Rings, the movie begins with Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman) getting whisked into adventure by the wizard, Gandalf (Ian McKellen), and a group of dwarfs, led by Thorn Oakenshield (Richard Armitage) in order to help the dwarfs reclaim their kingdom that was destroyed by an evil dragon years before. Will the company succeed in their quest?

Now, as you all may likely recall, this film version of Tolkien’s novel, The Hobbit, got split into three parts. Should that have been the case, or should it have been divided into two parts, or even just been one whole movie altogether? Well, if they wanted to make this specific film franchise as good as possible, two parts may have for sure been necessary. However, having said that, I’m not sure that dividing the film into three parts might have been the best idea. I mean at least with the original Lord Of The Rings trilogy, there was a legitimate reason for having that three films, since, well, Tolkien’s novels for that series WAS a trilogy. But with The Hobbit, it was just one book. So, what was director Peter Jackson’s goal with dividing The Hobbit into three movies? Could it be that he wanted to make the film overall almost, if not quite as good as the original book? Were he, and the rest of the film trying to get the audience to explore more of the fantasy world of Middle Earth? Honestly, there may likely be quite a bit of speculation for Peter Jackson, and the crew’s decision to do this. Regardless, it’s likely possible that two films might have been the better option to go, somehow. That is especially since the second, and third films may have been the better films of this trilogy (though, we shall see fairly soon). That being said, was this first Hobbit film good too? Well, it was definitely good, but not great. First of all, the movie could have most likely gone through one, maybe two more drafts for a better storyline even for this first movie. For instance, the beginning of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey started off kind of slow. In fact, for some of the very beginning, I’m not so sure a lot of that needed to be in this film. There were also some points that might have dragged a little too much. I mean even some of the fight scenes might not have always been necessary. Oh yes, some of them were. But still, even those might have gone on a little too long at times. Oh, and with some of the characters that were included in this Hobbit film, especially ones like Elrond, and maybe even Saruman, I’m not sure some people will be fans of how they especially were handled at certain scenes that they were in in this movie. One other thing that I will add is that there were one, or two scenes that might have been a little corny.

With all of that said, what did work for this movie? Well, for one, this film did well with incorporating a lot of things from the book. I remember reading the book, The Hobbit, years ago, and recalling scenes from it. I can remember even imagining what those scenes had to be like before even seeing this movie version in the first place. So, kudos to Jackson for including a lot of that into this film. Additionally, other than a couple characters not being handled in the best way, the rest were really great, especially Bilbo Baggins, Gandalf, and Thorin Oakenshield, and a good majority of the dwarfs. It was also great to see that Howard Shore returned to compose the score for this movie. Yeah, definitely another way that you can tell that Jackson wanted to try to honor the legacy of Tolkien’s work as much as possible, be it the Lord Of The Rings trilogy, or the three-part Hobbit. There was also some really great CGI as well. In addition to all of this, there were also some really pretty shots, beautiful scenery, and other imagery that helped make this film worth one’s time even more. Oh, and a lot of the script, and conversations that occurred in this film were brilliant. Finally, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey helps deliver excellent messages, and allegories in terms of not letting yourself be blind to all that is going on in the world, not judging others by their actions, size, color, you name it, and being willing to help others, even when it may not be easy.

And that’s my review for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. Well, even though this Hobbit film may not have been the best start to this particular trilogy, one needs to give Jackson credit at least for trying to make this three-part film series as good as possible. It has good dialogue, excellent shots, good heroes, and villains, and more that make this film worth one’s while. If you still have yet to see this Hobbit film, or even the other two that film, definitely do. You’ll still get enjoyment out of it regardless of how you feel about this one, or even the other two Hobbit films.

Final Grade: B-