The Hobbit (2012) review

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, was released in 2012 and directed by Peter Jackson. It is based on the novel ‘The Hobbit’ by J.R.R. Tolkien. The story is set 60 years before the events in The Lord of the Rings.

To begin with, I’m not a huge fan of Lord of the Rings movies. Too much walking, and they went for too long. The action and battle scenes were fun but it’s no Star Wars. I assumed The Hobbit would continue in the same manner as the LOTR trilogy and I was not wrong. Even though I knew exactly what I was getting into by watching this film, a few things still really annoyed me and I will whinge about them here.

First of the bat – the title. ‘An unexpected Journey’. Really??!?!? It’s the freaking hobbit – 90% of LOTR was walking, we all know it’s going to be a lot of walking and getting chased by bad guys. Maybe ‘The Hobbit: Put your walking shoes on’, ‘The Hobbit: let’s go for a stroll’, or even ‘The Hobbit: pack your lunch’ would have been more apt titles.

(image from: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0903624/)

The next thing that rather frustrated me was the length and pace of the film. Yes, I knew what I was getting into but it still sucked. The film runs for 169 minutes, if you’re terrible at maths that’s nearly 3 hours. It could have been closer to 2 and still told the story. IT TOOK 45 MINUTES FOR THEM TO LEAVE THE HOUSE. 45! Sorry for the caps but that’s ridiculous. Too much time spent mucking around and that stupid singing and dancing scene with the dwarves. Yes, we get it, they’re dwarves, they DGAF and they’re messy and loud. Awesome.

I’m not going to summarise the entire plot. You can read it on IMBD or if you have 3 hours to waste find out for yourself. It’s the usual, hobbits being short but brave, dwarves being dwarves, the elves being all pretty and helpful, wizards that need a shave and of course, the goshdarn orcs. They want your hobbits and they want them bad. Don’t forget Gollum and the ring and they even throw in a dragon for good measure. Smaug isn’t happy about something. I think he wants more jewellery, I forget but I’m sure that’s not important.

The scenery is lovely and the acting is quality. Martin Freeman makes a good hobbit, and Ian McKellen is the standout as usual. Financially it worked, according to Wikipedia it cost about $2-300 million to make and made a billion back at the box office. I’m not an accountant, but yeah, lots of money.

In summary, if you liked LOTR enough and have time to waste, then watch it.

If you’re impatient and sick of watching short people walk, don’t bother.

My rating is 6/10. If they cut out the unnecessary bits so it was shorter that would be closer to an 8.

James.

(facts and stats courtesy of :  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0903624/)