The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

A journey of a movie, in a good way


My eyes have finally seen my most anticipated movie of the year and though I enjoyed it thoroughly, there were some short pitfalls that made it less memorable or epic as its predecessor.

Just to fill in everyone who was not aware, The Hobbit was filmed in 3D, 48 frames per second, digital format. This radically changed the movie. When the movie first starts in Hobbiton, the 48 fps as an immediately visible effect. Everything looks far more real than in a typical 24 fps movie and it gives the movie a sort of soap-opera-in-high-definition feel. Additionally, it makes the special effects and CGI far easier to pick out. The film is so smooth, that the CGI isn't blurred by the natural constraints of 24 fps film so most of the CGI creatures and action falls into the uncanny valley. However, there are some great benefits to the frame rate boost. First of all, everything looks hyper realistic. The beautiful vistas of New Zealand are rendered in more color and detail than ever before. The amount of detail is so amazing, it almost reaches a saturation point and sometimes you can't process every little bit of it. The 3D was also a plus as it added more realism to the movie but wasn't really necessary.

Now that I got all the juicy tech stuff out of the way, I can dive into the Ya's and Nay's of the movie. The movie was really long, almost too long at some points. The first hour is spent in Hobbiton or filling the viewer in on the lore surrounding the adventure. This really stretches the movie out and makes it feel real slow at the beginning.

Ya! Five minutes of dwarves devouring everything in Biblo's house! Now that's a movie.

After the long and boring exposition in Hobbiton, the real movie begins and its pacing is much better, albeit repetitive. It seems to fall into a rhythm of trekking cross country while simultaneously developing the characters, and then turning into an action packed chase scene. This pattern is continuous throughout the movie and the movie ends just as it began, with all of them together in high hopes of completing their adventure; a plot format that ties the whole thing together into a continuous repetitive circle. In short, the pacing is devoid of surprises.

The plot was much better. Peter Jackson took much care in informing the viewer of the circumstances of Bilbo's expedition --  past and present --, added a little off book antagonism to give the movie some greater urgency, and tied in the Lord of the Rings Saga nicely by presenting The Necromancer (Sauron before he regained his strength in Mordor), throwing in Radagast the Brown, and characters from the Lord of the Rings like Lady Galadriel and Saruman (whom didn't appear in The Hobbit). 

The action in this movie was good, but too far fetched. The Lord of the Rings had its ridiculous moments but this movie really made me suspend disbelief in some action sequences. When the company is fleeing the Goblin King, Fili (or is it Kili) wacks arrows away with his sword and uses a ladder as an effective shield against the flurry of arrows. Additionally, some scenes in which the action should have most definitely resulted in the death of all the characters, they all came out without a hair out of place.

Overall, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey was a welcome return to Middle Earth, even if it was long winded at some points and the action far to over the top. I give it a 4 out of 5.