Title: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Director: Peter Jackson
Running time: 2 hours 49 minutes
Genre: Fantasy
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is an epic tale about an adventure a hobbit take with a group of dwarves and a wizard in an effort to take back Erebor from a dragon, Smaug (voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch... not voiced in this episode)
The subplot, however is the base for the next epic tale to be found in Lord of the Rings. It is about how Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman) come about to the "One Ring" which triggers the events in Lord of the Rings series.
This review is gonna be totally skewed. I'm a fan of J.R.R Tolkien's stories... long before it gained immense popularity amongst the "regular" people due to the marketing it received as a result of the movie blockbuster by Peter Jackson.
Reprising his role as the director, Peter Jackson transformed the tale from a novel to the silver screen seamlessly. Despite the numerous bad publicity about this movie (eg. animal deaths, new standard of FPS, etc.), I'm still in love with this movie.
That said, I think that this movie is a little bit dragged out. It is too soon to make a conclusion since the second and third part of this movie is to be screened in 2013 and 2014 respectively, but I found the first 30 minutes of the movie to be quite a bore. Sure, he has to lay down some sort of history but I think the dwarves singing in Bilbo's house a little bit too long and too much. And the introduction of Galadriel (Cate Blanchett) and Saruman the White (Christopher Lee) as a guest actor serves almost no purpose whatsoever.
The fight scenes while nice, contain too much of senseless actions and again, dragged out. The battle for Moira is uninteresting and the fight under the Misty Mountains is kind of ridiculous.
Despite all those things, I still love The Hobbit. Martin Freeman as Bilbo is okay, I supposed... but my opinion might be somewhat "non-neutral" because I loved him in his act as Dr. Watson in the "Sherlock" tv series. On that note, Smaug, to be voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch in future episodes, is the Sherlock in "Sherlock" tv series.
Ian McKellen reprising his role as Gandalf the Grey is brilliant... though he does seem to be quite worn out in the movie... and that might because I'm affected by news of him commenting that he had wanted out from the movie several times due to multitude of delays... but that's just me... will keep an eye out for it in the future episodes.
As for the leader of the dwarves, Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitage), his acting is quite good and make a really convincing leader in a band of dwarves trying to retake their home. While speaking of dwarves, I think that the "look" of the dwarves in this movie to be quite strange... I can't quite point it out, but there seemed to be something wrong with their hairstyle/costume/face. And they have to introduce themselves as dwarves for me to confirm that they are indeed acting as dwarves.
While I seemed to have more bad things to say about this movie than good, it is indeed a good movie and the journey with the hobbit, wizard and dwarves is a really exciting one.
Before I sign off, there has been one thing that a lot of people commented to me about the "One Ring". They said the the "One Ring" only made you invisible, and that it was not powerful at all. Well, let me tell you that the "One Ring" is really, really powerful ONLY when is used by Sauron (Dark Lord). In other people's hand, it is just a trinket... but all people covet it because they refuse to believe that. They all think that they can control the power of the Ring.
Observation: Gandalf's advice to Bilbo about letting someone live ultimately led to Bilbo not killing Gollum which led to Gollum being captured and tortured about information on the "One Rings" which led to the events in Lord of the Rings. Basically, all those bad things that happened in Lord of the Rings, is Gandalf's fault!
Bottomline: A must watch for those who loved Lord of the Rings trilogy.
Bamboo Ranking: 4.0/5.0
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is an epic tale about an adventure a hobbit take with a group of dwarves and a wizard in an effort to take back Erebor from a dragon, Smaug (voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch... not voiced in this episode)
The subplot, however is the base for the next epic tale to be found in Lord of the Rings. It is about how Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman) come about to the "One Ring" which triggers the events in Lord of the Rings series.
This review is gonna be totally skewed. I'm a fan of J.R.R Tolkien's stories... long before it gained immense popularity amongst the "regular" people due to the marketing it received as a result of the movie blockbuster by Peter Jackson.
Reprising his role as the director, Peter Jackson transformed the tale from a novel to the silver screen seamlessly. Despite the numerous bad publicity about this movie (eg. animal deaths, new standard of FPS, etc.), I'm still in love with this movie.
That said, I think that this movie is a little bit dragged out. It is too soon to make a conclusion since the second and third part of this movie is to be screened in 2013 and 2014 respectively, but I found the first 30 minutes of the movie to be quite a bore. Sure, he has to lay down some sort of history but I think the dwarves singing in Bilbo's house a little bit too long and too much. And the introduction of Galadriel (Cate Blanchett) and Saruman the White (Christopher Lee) as a guest actor serves almost no purpose whatsoever.
The fight scenes while nice, contain too much of senseless actions and again, dragged out. The battle for Moira is uninteresting and the fight under the Misty Mountains is kind of ridiculous.
Despite all those things, I still love The Hobbit. Martin Freeman as Bilbo is okay, I supposed... but my opinion might be somewhat "non-neutral" because I loved him in his act as Dr. Watson in the "Sherlock" tv series. On that note, Smaug, to be voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch in future episodes, is the Sherlock in "Sherlock" tv series.
Ian McKellen reprising his role as Gandalf the Grey is brilliant... though he does seem to be quite worn out in the movie... and that might because I'm affected by news of him commenting that he had wanted out from the movie several times due to multitude of delays... but that's just me... will keep an eye out for it in the future episodes.
As for the leader of the dwarves, Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitage), his acting is quite good and make a really convincing leader in a band of dwarves trying to retake their home. While speaking of dwarves, I think that the "look" of the dwarves in this movie to be quite strange... I can't quite point it out, but there seemed to be something wrong with their hairstyle/costume/face. And they have to introduce themselves as dwarves for me to confirm that they are indeed acting as dwarves.
While I seemed to have more bad things to say about this movie than good, it is indeed a good movie and the journey with the hobbit, wizard and dwarves is a really exciting one.
Before I sign off, there has been one thing that a lot of people commented to me about the "One Ring". They said the the "One Ring" only made you invisible, and that it was not powerful at all. Well, let me tell you that the "One Ring" is really, really powerful ONLY when is used by Sauron (Dark Lord). In other people's hand, it is just a trinket... but all people covet it because they refuse to believe that. They all think that they can control the power of the Ring.
Observation: Gandalf's advice to Bilbo about letting someone live ultimately led to Bilbo not killing Gollum which led to Gollum being captured and tortured about information on the "One Rings" which led to the events in Lord of the Rings. Basically, all those bad things that happened in Lord of the Rings, is Gandalf's fault!
Bottomline: A must watch for those who loved Lord of the Rings trilogy.
Bamboo Ranking: 4.0/5.0
