The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
The Beloved prelude to Lord of the Rings is finally given the treatment it deserves on the big screen!
Before I go into what I thought about this movie, I just want to talk about about how it's kind of a miracle this movie even exists! Now this is probably the longest I've ever waited for a film to come out. I remember, after I saw Return of the King in 2004, thinking about this book becoming a movie and wanting it made...even though I didn't read the book until a few years afterword. When I did read it, I really, really wanted to see the movie. Now let me just say that "The Lord of the Rings" is one of-if not my favorite movie trilogy of all time; and the best made cinematic films I have ever seen. But getting back to production: The Tolkien Family try to sue New Line, Peter Jackson was going to direct it, then he wasn't, and in fact, Guillermo Del Toro (Pacific Rim, Hellboy) was going to direct these films for a while and actually got quite far into pre-production until dropping out. So, in other words, this film went through a lot to see the light of day, and when it finally did, I saw it and wasn't disappointed.
It took you back to middle-earth! There are people who say "it was such a let down compared to Lord of the Rings!" Well, this isn't the Lord of the Rings, it's the Hobbit! It was based on a children's book from the 1930s' for crying out loud! And ..I don't like it as well as Lord of the Rings and didn't expect to, but the scope, the acting, the story, the characters were all there. I personally loved Martin Freeman as Biblo Baggins, he just embodied the character of Bilbo and totally knocked it out of the park in my opinion. Ian McKellen was amazing as Gandalf again, he brought a bit of a more light and humorous side to him this time around and I just loved him, I love all I've seen of Ian Mckellin's work so that's not surprising it was great to see Cate Banchett back as Galadrial and even though the Council scene wasn't in the book I loved it. Now this is just part of the book, and even I was a little skeptical when I heard they were making it into three films, but hey it's Middle-Earth and Peter Jackson (kind of a Jacksonnite here) the longer there the better, and the scenes that were from the book, magic, pure magic, from the scene where the Dwarfs show up at Biblo's Hobbit hole, the "Riddles in the Dark" scene (maybe my favorite scene in the movie)... that's the thing about this movie, it's the little scenes that turn out the best.
Now there were a few things I had a couple issues with, while I loved the Dwarfs and thought all the cast as them were great, I thought, maybe Thorin Oakinshield's back story, at least some of it was a bit unnecessary and they tried to add some darkness to it to make it feel more adult. It kind of took away from "Bilbo" a bit. The CGI Orks I didn't care much for. I wished they used real people for more of them like in Lord of the Rings, and it did seem a little long here and there, but that's pretty much it. But overall I loved this movie and for the material they had to work with, it was brilliant. I loved this movie, a total must see!
It took you back to middle-earth! There are people who say "it was such a let down compared to Lord of the Rings!" Well, this isn't the Lord of the Rings, it's the Hobbit! It was based on a children's book from the 1930s' for crying out loud! And ..I don't like it as well as Lord of the Rings and didn't expect to, but the scope, the acting, the story, the characters were all there. I personally loved Martin Freeman as Biblo Baggins, he just embodied the character of Bilbo and totally knocked it out of the park in my opinion. Ian McKellen was amazing as Gandalf again, he brought a bit of a more light and humorous side to him this time around and I just loved him, I love all I've seen of Ian Mckellin's work so that's not surprising it was great to see Cate Banchett back as Galadrial and even though the Council scene wasn't in the book I loved it. Now this is just part of the book, and even I was a little skeptical when I heard they were making it into three films, but hey it's Middle-Earth and Peter Jackson (kind of a Jacksonnite here) the longer there the better, and the scenes that were from the book, magic, pure magic, from the scene where the Dwarfs show up at Biblo's Hobbit hole, the "Riddles in the Dark" scene (maybe my favorite scene in the movie)... that's the thing about this movie, it's the little scenes that turn out the best.
Now there were a few things I had a couple issues with, while I loved the Dwarfs and thought all the cast as them were great, I thought, maybe Thorin Oakinshield's back story, at least some of it was a bit unnecessary and they tried to add some darkness to it to make it feel more adult. It kind of took away from "Bilbo" a bit. The CGI Orks I didn't care much for. I wished they used real people for more of them like in Lord of the Rings, and it did seem a little long here and there, but that's pretty much it. But overall I loved this movie and for the material they had to work with, it was brilliant. I loved this movie, a total must see!
10/10
Good review! Loved it! Keep up the good (blogging) work!
ReplyDeleteCheers!