Hobbit: Unexpected Journey critical review by Jeremy Jahns

Full text transcript of Hobbit Unexpected Journey critical review

In the middle of the earth, in the land of the shire, there’s a brave little hobbit that we all admire and his name is Martin Freeman from Sherlocks straight up.

The Hobbit, an unexpected journey for those of you who know me and those of you who don’t, I am an enormous Lord of the Rings fan and The Hobbit, An Unexpected Journey is part one of three of the trilogy that takes place before Lord of the Rings. It shows how Bilbo got the ring and his whole adventure with Gandalf in the Dwarves to start reviewing this movie The Hobbit. An Unexpected Journey is directed by Peter Jackson, which is great. He’s the director of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. So if ever there was a vision for The Hobbit, it’s going to be this one. And Bilbo is played by Martin Freeman from Sherlock in this movie. And so Gandalf comes to him and he’s like, hey, you want to go on an adventure with me and go with these 13 dwarves to get their treasure back from a big dragon? And hobbits don’t like that kind of adventure. So it’s like, no, but yeah, sure. We’re going to start out with Martin Freeman as Bilbo Martin Freeman owns it as Bilbo. You watch this movie, you’re like, this is the only Bilbo Baggins that I want to know. You don’t even think about Ian home. I mean, I loved Ian Holland, Lord of the Rings, but all I’m saying is Martin Freeman is completely perfect. He’s likeable, he’s fun. He’s our underdog in this movie, you know, because Thornes like you have no business with us because I’m a really beefy, enormous dwarf who’s still, you know, small because I’m a dwarf. You’re rooting for Bilbo. And Martin Freeman has great expert delivering this line. And we have Ian McKellen as Gandalf is Gandalf the Grey again.

We knew him as Gandalf the White in the past two movies. Now we’re going half a century in the past and now he’s back to being the grey and he completely kills it in this movie also. And I love it because you get more screen time with Gandalf in any movie that has more. Gandalf Screentime is a good movie to me. But that being said, the movie does take a little bit to get going. It’s slow on the start up. It starts out kind of like that. Nabor, with the really loud truck that you hear him trying to start at six a.m. to get to his job. And you’re like, dude, just just get that thing going so you can get to your destination. Kind of what this is like half an hour into the movie, I was like, we’re still in the shire and I’m not even going to clown on the fact that all the dwarves come in and they start singing songs. That actually impressed me. I like the fact that they were singing songs because the songs were in the book and I was like, whoa, accurate Delora. I like it. So I get it. That was really cool to see, but it starts out with home old Bilboa talking about the whole adventure with the dwarves and their treasure and how it was stolen. What the elves did has a lot of back story, like the beginning of Fellowship of the Ring when you hear Galadriel doing the voiceover and it’s a war with sarongs like that. But, you know, dwarves getting their shit stolen.

It’s not just the build up in the very beginning of the movie that takes a while to get going. There were a few scenes and scenarios in the movie where I was like that could have been shortened up a bit. Don’t get me wrong, I know how build up works. I know how scene setup works. But it’s kind of like there’s a time for for playing, a time to move on. It can get drawn out for a little longer than it should be drawn out. But another thing I did love about the movie were the dwarves right in Fellowship of the Ring. I don’t mean to compare this movie to Lord of the Rings, but people are going to anyway kind of a misfortune of this movie. It’s going to be compared to Lord of the Rings big time. But if I’m comparing characters you’re stuck with for the movies and Fellowship of the Ring, you can just look at the crew and you’re like, oh, yeah, they’re completely diverse and different because you have humans and dwarves and elves and hobbits. This one, you’re like, Oh, I have dwarves and one hobbit and one wizard. But their personalities really shine. Not all of them shine. I mean, there are some that are just kind of in the background. I can’t name off the personality types of every dwarf in this movie, but there are a few that stand out. Luckily, foreign is one of them. Thorin is a complete badass. I wanted to like this dude in the movie and I liked him every bit as much as I wanted to.

He’s like the flagship of the dwarves. You got to make that guy badass. You got to make him and Bilbo’s relationship, you know, something you want to grasp. Do you want to see them work it out and become friends? That’s totally one of the centerpieces of this movie. And I loved it.

But then there’s the flip side of this movie has a lot of CGI. You can look at Lord of the Rings and you see, oh, yeah, it has a lot of CGI in it, but this one has a lot more CGI was it bothers some it takes away from the grid a little bit. So you’re like, oh, it’s not as gritty as Lord of the Rings is, but also The Hobbit book isn’t as gritty as the Lord of the Rings books are either. So the fact that it’s not as dark as Lord of the Rings is just accurate as less CGI than Avatar. I can say that not that that same shit, you know, and OK, we’ve got to talk about this, Radagast, the Browns, some people will think he’s all right. Others will hate him, others will loathe him. And there are some who will call him the Jar Jar Binks of Middle Earth. You won’t get an argument from me if I have to pick the weakest link in this movie.

It’s Radagast, the brand, which is a bummer because his story arc feeds into something that’s really cool with the necromancer. So his character is relevant. You just wish they’d done him differently, is all. I don’t even know if how they did.

Radagast the Brown in The Hobbit is actually accurate to the Lord because I don’t know that much about Radagast the brand. To tell you the truth, I know he’s the lower tier wizard, so he’s not going to have that Gandalf persona or anything like that. That being said, did they need to make him some weird Guanglie mushroom eating hippie that looks like he’s in this movie to appease kids? Seriously, he has like bird shit on his head. He’s walking around like apes make up.

What do you do if darkness the brown wizard of Middle Earth?

Ladies and gentlemen, I don’t need all the Wizards to be like cookie cutter, confident old dudes, but it would have been cooler than Radagast the Brown in this movie. But for the Radagast haters in the world, he’s not in the movie that much. So he really doesn’t detract from the entire thing of this two hour and forty five minute saga. He’s in the movie like five minutes, but you will remember the five minutes of screen time in which you got the really old wizard meth head of Middle Earth. And for people who might say, but it was accurate to law, then apparently I don’t like Radagast in the book either.

I tried to like. But in the end, do you think back here like but I don’t however, what completely kicks ass the last two hours of this movie completely kicks ass the last two hours that this movie is everything I wanted The Hobbit to be. It was awesome. It was exciting.

Gandalf is more badass in this movie than he’s ever been. Yeah. The dude took on a Balrog of more got more badass in this. All right. Well, Balrog Mawgoud, pretty big deal. So he’s still a badass in The Hobbit and The Riddles in the Dark segment. That’s a segment with Gollum and Bilbo. I could have watched that for three hours and been completely entertained. That was a great scene in Gollum. Looks awesome. I mean, the tech they used for Gollum is now advanced ten years and he looks picture perfect like he’s there.

And when he’s all like Roths pockets, I was like, he’s a little more than pissed right now.

And it was great to see just get emotion out of Gollum where you’re like, yep, that’s that’s steals the movie. So this movie’s exciting. It’s really cool. It is a welcome return to Middle Earth. If you’re a Lord of the Rings fan, watch it. However, if you’re not a Lord of the Rings fan of Lord of the Rings didn’t win you over, I don’t know that this is going to be the thing that wins you over. It’s a great movie. It’s a good time. I want to watch it again. The soundtrack is fantastic. There are definitely moments in this movie where you’re like, this is excellent. It’s great news. This is everything I love about Lord of the Rings right here in front of me. However, there are other scenes where you’re like that was kind of unnecessary and that felt drawn out and that felt a bit forced, like these scenes could have been cut out and then put on the extended edition. You know, which makes me wonder, were these scenes drawn out because they want to draw out the entire saga to make it a trilogy instead of two movies like it was originally going to be? I don’t know. I can’t qualify that shit. Probably in an objective review, I will say I would buy The Hobbit an unexpected journey on Blu ray. The movie did have its flaws, but in the end I had a blast with it and it was a welcome return to Middle Earth. And we got to talk about the high frame rate. If you didn’t know Peter Jackson film The Hobbit movies in forty eight frames a second, which is twice the frame rate as the usual twenty four frames a second, which is what movies are filmed in.

And how does it look strange. It’s really crystal clear. You cannot argue that, but there are some scenes where you’re like is that in fast forward it looks like the movie is playing and fast forward but it’s not. It just has more frames so it freaks your brain out a little bit. It takes about a half an hour to get used to it. So keep that in mind. I think it’s going to break down like this. If you work with film or you work with frame. Right. And you appreciate that kind of stuff, you’re going to find the high frame rate pretty cool. Is it going to add to the experience? I don’t know. Is it going to take away possibly. You’re going to find it interesting. Nonetheless, if you’re the rest of the normal populace of the world, you’re going to be like this is completely contradicting everything I’ve ever known about movies and that I find it kind of strange and I’m not sure I like it. So for your first viewing of The Hobbit, watch it in the normal twenty four frames a second, your second time after you taken in the content, you’re feeling adventurous watching forty eight frames a second. You should watch it in forty eight frames a second just to see because it’s worth seeing. It’s a jump in technology. That’s always fun. I saw The Hobbit an unexpected journey. Have you seen it. And what did you think about it compared to Lord of the Rings or standing on its own. Whatever you thought, comment below. Let me know. And as always, if you like what you’ve seen here and you want to see more, click right here to see more.