Hobbit: Unexpected Journey review- by Chris Stuckmann

Full text transcript of the Hobbit Unexpected Journey review

The first Hobbit film is finally here. Guys, we have been watching my previous three reviews, you know, I’m a big fan of the Lord of the Rings. I love that original trilogy. I think it’s one of the best trilogies ever made. So let’s talk about the new film The Hobbit. The Hobbit, An Unexpected Journey, is once again directed by Peter Jackson, and this is the prequel to The Lord of the Rings trilogy. This is the film that shows how a lot of the things that happen in the Lord of the Rings trilogy is set up. But it’s mainly the tale of this one little innocent hobbit played by Martin Freeman, who goes on an adventure with the Wizard Gandalf played by Ian McKellen. A lot of dwarves underground in which he first discovers the ring, a dragon Gollum and many other things. And this is our first look at a brand new J.R. Tolkien adaptation adventure. Now, I got to be honest with you guys. I like to keep it real. You know, I’ve been hearing things about this movie I was hearing. It wasn’t as good as the original trilogy. I was seeing a lot of reviews saying the first hour was a little bit hard to get through. And so I didn’t set myself up for disappointment. I went into the film with low expectations. I love the original trilogy so much, but I went to this film expecting to not be blown away and to just be like, OK, let’s just watch this movie and see what it’s all about.

I didn’t want to hype myself up too much because whenever that happens, it always leads to disappointment. And I’ll be completely real with you guys. I’m not going to sugarcoat this at all. This is nowhere near as good as the original trilogy. Now, if you didn’t like the original trilogy, then you’re not going to like this film. It’s not going to convert you. It’s not going to change you. This is not as good as that original trilogy. No, I don’t want to be. That guy just sits here and compares it to the original trilogy the entire time, because I’m not going to do that. I’m just going to tell you that it’s not on that same level. Unfortunately, there are a lot of problems with this movie, but there are good things, too, for sure. There’s a lot of impressive things in this movie, namely the acting very good on almost everyone’s part. Ian McKellen as Gandalf. I just it’s so good to see that character back. He is awesome and he’s excellent here. You can’t really imagine that character as someone else. He plays that kind of grandfather role just perfectly where he’s calming. And you can tell that he really cares about these people. But he’s also a complete badass in battle, which is pretty awesome. Out of all the actors, perhaps the most important piece is definitely Martin Freeman as The Hobbit, but his character at first is very kind of a little bit prissy. You know, he wants his dishes kept safe. Don’t touch my carpet and all that stuff.

You know, that’s how he is at first. And throughout the series, I’m sure we’ll see him mature more. But in this first film, it does take a while for him to kind of get more into the idea of an adventure. And that leads me to my main issue with this film. And that’s the pacing. The first hour to maybe even 90 minutes of this film are a little rough, not too much happens. And you may be getting ready to ty. Well, that’s how it is in the book, Chris. Well, you know what? When you adapt a book to a film, there are certain things that can be omitted and there are certain things that can be left out because they don’t add anything to the movie and they’re more to enrich the novel experience. When you adapt a book to a movie, certain things need to be cut out so the pacing can flow better because the first hour to 90 minutes of this film, we’re pretty much a snail pace. And it’s not that no one’s running around being chased by trolls or anything. I’m not talking about that. It’s just it’s not terribly interesting for this first hour to 90 minutes. That’s because the characters and the dialogue, there wasn’t too much going on. It was a lot of exposition. And for that reason, I had a hard time getting into the first act of this movie. Once these characters start on their journey, it does pick up a little bit. But there are hitches along the way where certain scenes just don’t feel like they need to be there.

And that was pretty disappointing because it felt like the adaptation of the book was very literal. Like this is exactly what happens and we’re going to tell it. And it came off as kind of like the extended edition. Blu ray was being shown in theaters where it should have been, you know, deleted scenes that were shown on a Blu ray for the hardcore fans of the film. And I feel like since I kind of have an inside track on the way this film was made, how it originally started out as two films and midway during production was extended to three, it seems like a lot of scenes that would normally have been removed from this film were included to extend the film’s runtime so they could make a trilogy. It really feels that way when you watch this movie, because there’s a lot of scenes where at the end you’re like, did that really add to the movie or was that just there because it was in the book? Another problem I have this film and a problem that a lot of people are going to have, trust me, is Radagast the wizard. This character is extremely annoying. He is basically the Jar Jar Binks with this movie. And gratefully, he has nowhere near as much screen time as Jar Jar Binks did. But this time that he does share in this film leaves you wondering why he was there and why they took him in that direction.

He’s going to be a character that many people are going to not like or some people are going to love me. Like, why don’t why do you like. And there’s going to be websites probably called Kill Radagast Dotcom. It’s going to happen. Trust me, this character is pretty horrifically annoying and I couldn’t stand him gratefully. He’s not in the movie for too long. Let’s talk about some more positives. Thor in the main dwarf. That guy is awesome. He is fantastic in this film. And he is kind of like the Aragorn of this movie. His dwarf had the most depth out of all of them, had the best back story, had the most fleshed out of a character. And you really felt for him the most as the dwarves. That leads me to an issue I had since there are like thirteen dwarves. It’s really hard to kind of care about them all. You know, it’s like certain ones are just going to have to fade out into the background. When I think about this, really, I’m not really thinking about these characters, it’s more of Thor and Bilbo and Gandalf and these three characters are the ones that really progressed the film along. The rest kind of feel like baggage at times. I got to be honest. But let me tell you about the best part of this movie. For me, my favorite scene in this film was Gollum and Bilbo and the riddles that they told one another down in the caverns. That was brilliant. I could have watched that forever.

I swear that was the best part of this movie. And really the last hour of this film is what I wanted the entire film to be like, because it’s not a bad movie at all. Don’t get me wrong, it is a enjoyable film. I think a lot of scenes that could’ve just been admitted and taken right out of this movie. I think if this was a two hour movie, it would’ve been pretty awesome. I saw the film in 48 frames per second 3D. The 3D is immaculate. It looks incredible. The frame rate is so amazingly vivid that 3D really helps. However, the 48 frames per second is going to be extremely distracting for many people, myself included. The first two shots of the movie where people are walking around, it honestly looks like some sort of quick, twitchy robot when Bilbo is puffing his pipe. It’s like really awkward. It just looks so strange. There are certain overhead battle scenes that look really impressive with everyone running around. And you can tell this looks real, you know, but there’s just something extremely distracting about it to the point where it takes away from the movie going experience, unfortunately, and actually became a bit of a negative for me. So I would recommend seeing the film in twenty four frames per second first and then going back and then seeing it in 48 frames a second time just to experience it, because it’s interesting. It’s something new, it’s something to look at and you can decide whether or not you like it first.

But it honestly was so distracting for me and a lot of other people in the theater said the same thing. Nevertheless, the finale of this film is extremely enthralling. The acting is good. Gollum is amazing. The CGI looks fantastic. Howard Shaw once again delivers a very great musical score. It’s just that first hour to 90 minutes is a little rough. And that’s coming from a huge Lord of the Rings fan. I got to be honest with you guys. I got to keep it real with you guys. I’m not going to say what you want to hear. There are problems with this movie. It’s not perfect. However, I am optimistic the next few will be better. And I hope that they take the advice from many people that I’m hearing about omitting certain scenes that don’t really need to be in the film, even if they’re in the book. This is an adaptation of a book to film and it should be treated that way. I’m going to give The Hobbit a B minus, which unfortunately is a lot lower of a grade than I wanted to give. So if you’ve seen The Hobbit yet, what do you guys think about it? I’m going to be doing a spoiler filled review with my buddy John, the flick pic. We saw it together. That’s going to be posted later this weekend. Look forward to that. As always, guys, thanks a lot for watching. And if you like this, then you can click right here and get stuck, monetized.