REVIEW: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

 There are no spoilers in this review. It was my #2 most anticipated movie of the year.

PLOT: A curious Hobbit, Bilbo Baggins, journeys to the Lonely Mountain with a vigorous group of Dwarves to reclaim a treasure stolen from them by the dragon Smaug.


THE GOOD: Casting. When I first heard that Martin Freeman was in talks to star as Bilbo Baggins in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, I was excited. He's pretty much the perfect man for the job. Unwilling, and then resourceful. Similar to his role in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Freeman doesn't change any of his acting habits, but it completely works for Bilbo. All of the familiar faces are back from the original trilogy and it was good to see them. Ian McKellen is still the old Gandalf the Grey that we loved in Fellowship of the Ring. It's worth mentioning that Hugo Weaving has an interesting performance. A bit softer than the strict Elrond we met in the original films. Perhaps because he doesn't see the evil brewing. The dwarves are all appropriately cast and weren't as annoying as I thought they'd be. They still aren't Gimli. No one will beat Gimli. All of their hair, make-up, and prosthetic work looks great, too, except for Kili. It's like they forgot him or something. He looks like a plain man. I was super happy to see Andy Serkis return as Gollum. That man is an incredibly underrated actor. I wish he could do more live-action stuff instead of the motion capture performances, but he's good nevertheless. This is one of the more fun parts of the movie, despite how dark it is.

ÓIN: "Do that thing you did in The Office where you looked at the camera and made a face."

THE BAD: Unoriginal. My biggest problem with The Hobbit is that it's unoriginal. It has the exact same feel and tone of the Lord of the Rings films. There's nothing really new or exciting. This movie especially feels like Fellowship of the Ring. You know, with the gathering of the group, traveling through the Shire, Rivendell, and the Misty Mountains, and having a dramatic confrontation in a forest near the end. That part is no fault of the writing or directing as it's in the book, but nothing new is done with these things.

Score. I'm all about tuning into the familiarity of the original trilogy, but it was just too much when it came to the music. There are new pieces and the dwarves' song is great, but all of the callbacks to music from the other movies felt like a cop-out. You still hear that cheery tune in Hobbiton, you still hear that swooning melody of Rivendell, and the familiar refrain when seeing the one ring for the first time suddenly becomes old. I expected more from Howard Shore here. Think about John Williams' score for Star Wars The Phantom Menace. All new, original, and memorable. I think a big opportunity was missed here to make The Hobbit series stand on its own.

Ahhhh, Rivendell. IT LOOKS THE SAME!

48 fps. I was sent tickets to an advanced screening of the film at Cinerama. It did not say whether it would be in 48 fps 3D, but when I arrived and spoke to a friend who works there, it was confirmed that it was going to be a 48 fps 3D screening. Warner Bros. is calling it HFR 3D, where 'HFR' stands for High Frame Rate. HFR 3D is a digital 3D motion picture format where a higher frame rate than the industry standard 24 frames per second is used. In this case, 48 fps. Proponents of the format say that the use of a higher frame rate improves the quality of 3D footage by reducing strobing and motion blur. This is correct. I've noticed strobing a lot in big action/CGI films and this has pretty much cleared all that up. I liked the CGI work in this than most of the other stuff I've seen recently. If you're a movie buff, you might have heard about some of the early criticisms of the format, too. This includes assertions that the cinematic look is lost with the use of high frame rates, and comparisons to footage that has undergone motion interpolation, in particular the "soap opera effect." This is practically spot-on. I was distracted by nearly every scene because something just didn't feel right. It's not that I have to get used to 48 fps, it's that I don't think you should aim to make a 24 and 48 fps movie at the same time. Because you're doubling the frame rate, you see more detail and the picture is sharpened. You can't tell me with a straight face that you're going to light a 24 fps shot the same way you would light a 48 fps shot. And what about hair and make-up? And what about tracking shots? I think 48 and 60 fps is going to have some sort of place in film for the future, but the experience is just not there yet. You lose a lot of the "Hollywood gloss" if you see The Hobbit in HFR 3D.


THE END: My best advice to you is to definitely go see the movie, but see it in a traditional 2D screening first. Then, if you wish to simply see what HFR 3D looks like, go a second time to check that out. I'm still confident that most folks are going to see the problem with it. Critics have almost unanimously panned the format. Other than that, it's good to have hobbits and wizards and dwarves and elves and... Narnia-like... creatures... back on the big screen! I'm looking forward to seeing if there will be more original stuff in the future films, especially with the use of Smaug. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is out in theatres today.


DISCUSS: What did you think of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey? What format did you see it in? Did you read the book? What is your favorite Lord of the Rings film? What do you wish could have been different about this film? Are you looking forward to the sequels?

 I was pleasantly surprised to see that some of my co-workers have roles in the film.