The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012) Review

Yet again Peter Jackson takes us to Middle-Earth, but this time in 48 frames per-second… oh dear. People seem to be very split on the 48fps, but it truly is horrendous in my opinion. Now before you say I should focus on the story telling etc. lets not forget that Peter Jackson wants us to see the films this way and if it doesn’t work then that is a huge reason for criticism. Going into the film I was thinking there was no way it was as bad as some critics are saying, but dear lord was the frame rate distracting. Though it got a bit easier to overlook eventually, I never managed to get lost in the story, I never got out of the movie theatre and could not get past how weird it looked when people were walking or the camera was panning. I can imagine that maybe one day, 48fps will be the standard, but at the moment it looks dreadful and my brain really had trouble processing everything when the cutting was fast during the action scenes. In the end it all just felt messy and unnecessary.

But, how was the movie outside the 48fps? Well… disappointing. Now just to make it clear, I know this is not supposed to be like the original trilogy, not as gritty or epic, but rather small in scale and whimsical. People say this is a children´s book, and in the film it shows a lot of the time, but then all of a sudden they are decapitating heads all over the place and the film is obviously too violent and scary for a child, yet it still feels like a children´s film a lot of the time. The film was very cartoony, and I get that they were going for that, but just because they were going for that doesn’t mean it works, because it doesn’t. Everything just comes off as silly and cheesy; something that cartoony doesn’t have to be. This also brought a huge inconsistency in the tone as it went from very cartoony, to all of a sudden some sweeping shots accompanied with some great epic music from Howard Shore, which didn’t feel cartoony at all.

The decision to make the orcs and goblins CGI (rather then actors in make-up as before), I guess could be a decision to make it cartoonier, but they looked ridiculous. While the ones in LOTR looked real and convincing, the ones in this film were awfully designed and though the CGI was astonishing, they never looked as real as in LOTR. I get they wanted it less gritty, but did they really have to make it into cheesy looking CGI figures?

The acting is great from all, especially Martin Freeman who is a good source of laughs and was perfectly cast. That being said I never connected that much with the characters, despite great acting all around. The character I ended up having the most sympathy with was Gollum, whose scene was also the best in the movie by a mile. Though outside this scene, there were few scenes that had my attention. For a majority of the film I felt like there was nothing going on, too many scenes felt like they were all about setting up a silly joke, without having a lot of relevance in plot or characters. The scene with the rock giants we saw in the trailer was visually amazing, but it felt so out of place and I just kept thinking, when is the plot going to get going?

In the end it seems two of the most controversial decisions, 48fps and making three films, also ruined it. While there were good moments, there was too much nothing going on and too much silliness while the plot never quite got going. It is visually stunning, accompanied by a great score, yet it just felt boring to me. I do believe seeing it in 24fps could make me enjoy it more, but I saw it in 48fps and so this is what I am reviewing, and I just didn’t enjoy it.

2/5