Definitely An Unexpected Journey

So after a couple days of digesting a movie a ginormous as The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, I now feel confident enough to to justly review the movie.

Peter Jackson's retelling of the J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit was definitely unexpected. Let's start with the good. The cinematography was absolutely gorgeous. Even in the regular frame rate, the picture was stunningly clear. The saturation was also a plus. It was a very pretty film to watch. Secondly, I love Martin Freeman. He IS Bilbo Baggins, right down to the core. His portrayal of the hobbit was just perfect. I truly believed he was Bilbo. The cast in general was just full of superb acting, though that's what you get when you stock your cast full of actors from the BBC. Ian McKellen was excellent as Gandalf as always. The dwarves were led by the talented Richard Armitage who played Thorin. The cast also included James Nesbitt as Bofur, Aidan Turner as Kili, and Stephen Hunter as Bombur.

So the acting was very good and the film was visually very appealing. The most crucial part of any film is the story. The story was not bad. It definitely felt like Tolkien since there was a lot of attention to detail but there were some elements that I just did not like. I appreciated the way Jackson opened up with Old Bilbo narrating the story and eventually revealing the story is being told to Frodo. I did not like Frodo's cameo. It felt very forced and like it was only there to appeal to the members in the audience who loved Frodo in The Lord of the Rings. I understood he was trying to reveal that Bilbo was writing his story on the day of his 111th birthday, the same day he leaves and Frodo's adventure begins, but something about it just did not feel right.

I also was not a fan of the Pale Orc having a bigger story arc in the movie then he did in the book. It seemed as though Jackson was trying to create more action and tension than there was in the first part of The Hobbit because he wanted it to be more action-y. This, took away from the feeling of a true Lord of the Rings feel. There did not seem to be as large of an emphasis on plot because when there was actual plot it moved very quickly. However, I did love that Jackson decided to expand Radagast's (Slyvester McCoy) story farther than what we read in the book. His storyline helped really enhance the plot and it was interesting to see another wizard beside Gandalf and Saruman, especially another good wizard.

The film was good but not great and thinking about it, I would say it is like The Two Towers for me considering that movie is really good but it is not my favorite (or I think) the best out of the trilogy.