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Title: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Rating: 12A

Cast:
Ian McKellen ... Gandalf
Martin Freeman ... Bilbo
Richard Armitage ... Thorin
Ken Stott ... Balin
Graham McTavish ... Dwalin
William Kircher ... Bifur / Tom Troll
James Nesbitt ... Bofur
Stephen Hunter ... Bombur
Dean O'Gorman ... Fili
Aidan Turner ... Kili
John Callen ... Oin
Peter Hambleton ... Gloin / William Troll
Jed Brophy ... Nori
Mark Hadlow ... Dori / Bert Troll
Adam Brown ... Ori

Okay, so this is going to be an unpopular opinion, but I have to say I was thoroughly underwhelmed by The Hobbit. That's not to say it's a really bad film, it just isn't great and is nowhere near as good as The Lord of the Rings Trilogy (LotR). Where as I can watch the extended versions of LotR again and again, I was bored in The Hobbit in places.

I think there is a very simple reason for this. LotR is a complex story with many subplots and many complex characters, the Hobbit isn't. In making it into three films the first simply doesn't have enough substance to keep me interested for 166 minutes and the 3D was pointless (this may be different if you've seen it in IMAX, but in our cinema it was lost).

Okay, lets back up a bit. There are good things about the film. The beginning for a start is superb. When the dwarves descend on a perplexed Bilbo it is brilliantly done, funny, fast paced and touching in places. Martin Freeman is also brilliant through the whole movie. He plays Bilbo with a humility and doubt that is wonderful, but with an inner strength that shines through, which is exactly what Bilbo should be.

However, he's really the only character I connected with all the way through. The dwarves were entertaining in their own way and occasionally pretty to look at, but I still don't know what any of their names are without looking and I didn't really feel for any of them. It took me half the movie to remember that the head dwarf was called Thorin, which is a very bad sign. When watching LotR I had all their names straight immediately and I hadn't read the book since I was a teenager, so it wasn't just remembering.

The makeup people did well to make them all look different, but they didn't do anything significant or individually so I didn't register their names and remember who they were. They were simply the party.

That's another good thing about the film, the makeup and special effects are superb ... well mostly. Gandalf did seem to change ratio to the dwarves quite a lot. However, the orcs, goblins and trolls were beautifully done and the part with the phantom/necromancer was actually pretty scary.

Oh, which reminds me, there was one other character I connected with, Sylvester McCoy as Radagast the Brown was brilliant. There was a part with him and a hedgehog (Sebastian) and it was just marvellous.

Also, Gollum was brilliant, in fact I think even more brilliant than he was in LotR. Andy Serkis surpassed himself again. I wish there had been a lot more of him in the film because he brought feeling and heart into it far more than I felt from any of the dwarves. SPOILER (highlight to read) When Thorin was struck down by Azog (I think that was his name) I didn't feel any of the danger and excitement I should have. I didn't overly care.

There was a lot of fillin in this film. A lot of long shots of horses or running that almost made me fall asleep. The bits of action were good, but they weren't glued together well. It was very disappointing. It felt forced and as if it needed a good editor, which, frankly, if they hadn't tried to make more money off it by stretching it, it wouldn't have needed. It's a very long time since I read The Hobbit, probably 30 years, so I don't know what the extra bits were, but it just didn't feel right.

I went into the movie wanting to like it. I love LotR, but if I see The Hobbit again I will want a forward wind option in my hand.

Oh and another thing, the film did make me think like this through a lot of it:

I was left with two questions by the end of the film. Spoilers (Highlight to read)
1) Why didn't the eagles drop them a little closer to the damn mountain?
2) If the only thing that saved them from the goblins was daylight and they were running down a mountain, why, once it got dark, didn't the goblins all come pouring out of the mountain after them?

(no subject)

Date: 2013-01-17 11:35 am (UTC)
moth2fic: violets plus caption 'spring' (Default)
From: [personal profile] moth2fic
An interesting reaction! Not one I share but it was good to read your review and it made me think through my own ideas about the film in more depth than just 'squee'!

I know the book inside out - read more than once for myself, more than once to my daughter, then more than once with school classes - and can recite all the dwarves' names etc. I adored the film. I've seen it twice - the first time was, accidentally, in 2D (we booked the wrong one) so we went again, last night, to the 3D version. I'm still feeling overwhelmed.

I thought the 3D was fantastic - it made the fight sequences etc. much easier to follow, the birds appearing to fly in the auditorium were amazing and the sparks/fire hurling out of the screen actually made me jump.

My husband, who has read the book, but ages ago (like you), was slightly bored by the first half but has been raving about the actual filming and direction, and as he is an amateur film maker that's high praise from him. He much preferred the 3D showing.

Azog was the only real addition and I think he was a good one; a book can perhaps cope with anonymous bands of orcs but a film needs a character to focus on. There were some bits of the discussion at Rivendell that were from The Silmarillion, but again, they were needed to explain things to an audience that might be unfamiliar with the book because a film can't stop for exposition and it was never intended as a children's film so there had to be explanations.

I don't think The Hobbit is 'just' a simple story. It's told that way in the book, yes, but it's the precursor for everything that happens in LotR and has a lot of hidden depths and hidden agenda, including Gollum but not only Gollum. I think that's one of its strengths - that it can be read on so many levels. But then I came to The Hobbit when I'd already read LotR a few times.

(The eagles, by the way, could not have flown to Erebor and back - no suitable landing places in between - so used their eyrie as the dropping off point and as somewhere healing could take place.)

I think, judging by your review and others I have seen on my f'list, that the film has been more popular with people who have read and re-read the book than with general audiences. So perhaps that is its real flaw? It brings the book to life on the screen but is not, maybe, a great film in its own right.

I have read and re-read LotR, too, and loved the film trilogy but admit to being bored by large parts of the second film whereas my husband loved it.

So - very individual reactions!! And all worth sharing and discussing!

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