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Rating: 6.5 stars

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All movies seen on 12/29/2012

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The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012)

Directed by Peter Jackson

Adventure | Fantasy

Most recently watched by schofizzy, ashe5k, vivalaserdisc, Javitron, CaptainBigTime, Angjonesy, squeegull, strangenotes, noahphex, seanCduregger

Overview

Bilbo Baggins, a hobbit enjoying his quiet life, is swept into an epic quest by Gandalf the Grey and thirteen dwarves who seek to reclaim their mountain home from Smaug, the dragon.

Rated PG-13 | Length 169 minutes

Actors

Martin Freeman | Ian McKellen | Richard Armitage | James Nesbitt | Ken Stott | Sylvester McCoy | Barry Humphries | Dean O'Gorman | Aidan Turner | Graham McTavish | Adam Brown | Peter Hambleton | John Callen | Mark Hadlow | Jed Brophy | William Kircher | Stephen Hunter | Andy Serkis | Cate Blanchett | Lee Pace | Hugo Weaving | Christopher Lee | Ian Holm | Elijah Wood | Benedict Cumberbatch | Manu Bennett | Conan Stevens | Jeffrey Thomas | Michael Mizrahi | John Rawls | Stephen Ure | Timothy Bartlett | Bret McKenzie | Kiran Shah | Glenn Boswell | Thomas Robins | Ruby Acevedo | Katie Jackson | Isaac Miller | Ella Olssen | Louis Ashbourne Serkis | Sonny Ashbourne Serkis | Ruby Ashbourne Serkis | Terry Notary | Peter Jackson | Brendan Casey | Jarred Blakiston

Viewing History (seen 2 times)

Viewing Notes

Specifically sought out and watched the high frame rate version (HFR) in 3D just to give it a fair shake. I didn’t dislike it as much as I thought I would but can’t say I felt it added anything to the experience. In fact, at times, it definitely broke the wall for me, very consciously reminding me I was watching a movie and taking me completely out of the experience.

The movie itself was likeable enough. I didn’t particularly mind the long running time but in the same breath, I don’t think The Hobbit really needs a three movie treatment. Plenty could have been cut without the experience really suffering for it.

Where I think The Hobbit really fails is in trying to recreate the epic scale and grandiosity of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. The imprimatur of LOTR is all over The Hobbit, and I think we all realize that wouldn’t be so if The Hobbit had been made first. The Hobbit is a smaller scale fantasy adventure that needs more intimacy than it’s given here.

Instead it’s infused with a sense of ominous foreshadowing that feels like a fait accompli: we all know these events have consequences because we’ve already watched those movies (and read those books).

The score throughout much of the film feels like a retread (it is, since many of the musical cues are derived from LOTR) and tries to imbue that same grandiose tone that just doesn’t work well in this movie.

The HFR also serves to undermine the attempted epic scale. HFR, by it’s very nature, does not feel filmic. Rather it comes across as a really, really nicely shot-on-video feature. Where HFR serves The Hobbit well is in the more intimate moments, such as when we spend time in Underhill, Bilbo’s home, getting introduced to the company of Dwarves.

The Hobbit isn’t a terrible movie by any means: not a train wreck or unwatchable. At times it does actually reach that epic scale it continually strives for, but only occasionally, and only fleetingly. By and large it feels like a film that’s trying to be more than the sum of it’s parts; trying to transcend the source material in ways that it can never achieve; and trying to be more culturally significant then it ever will be.

At some point I’ll revisit it in good old 2D, 24 FPS and perhaps my attitude will soften, but I doubt by much. Even my kids, who this movie is aimed squarely at, came away from the experience disappointed. Not that they didn’t like it, they did, but that ultimately it was a forgettable movie experience. They both noticed and commented on the HFR and how they weren’t impressed with it.

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