Monday, December 17, 2012

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Movie Review (No Spoilers)



I may not have read all the Lord Of The Rings books but I have watched the Peter Jackson Movie Trilogy 10 hours straight. Yes, I did that. It is a day I will never forget. So naturally when I heard a movie trilogy coming from Tolkien’s The Hobbit novel, I was all excited. I was even more excited to hear the movie was releasing on the same day as the US Release Date. And so I went… and enjoyed quite a lot. This is not a usual movie review I do. This is more of a review as a whole.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is a movie for the brain rather than brawn. Oh, don’t get me wrong… it has its fair share of action scenes. If you are a hardcore fan of the Lord Of The Rings movie series, there’s quite a lot of references in this movie; references only the true fan could recognize. When I mean a lot… I mean A LOT! It’s fun how they included these references for the amusement of the fan. Kudos to the Writer and the Director. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey tie things up pretty well with the original trilogy. On Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring, you may remember Bilbo Baggins telling a story to some tiny Hobbits and scare the living day light out of the lot. I won’t spoil you here… watch The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and you’ll find out something very special about it.

CGI looks good as always. Can’t say much about the 3D gimmick.

We have good cast this time around as well. Dr. Watson delivers a pretty awesome Bilbo Baggins. It’s always nice to see some of the old cast especially Gandalf The Grey. I personally like Gandalf The Grey better than Gandalf The White. Seeing Gandalf The Grey again is pure joy for me.

The new movie is not dreary and boring as the first LOTR. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is action packed (even felt like too much). I never even felt 3 hours pass by and wished for more.
This movie is a prequel movie and is rightfully so. I’ve seen a lot of prequel movies and yet they are horrible. Usually prequel movies all have a plot where they will shoehorn everything in and try to tie things up. Let me tell you, that doesn’t really work (*cough*Phantom Menace*cough*). But, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey truly deserve to be titled as a prequel.

But of course it is customary to speak about the bad as much as the good. Having a trilogy of Lord of the Rings movies meant this one is easily compared with it for the nitpicking. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey follows the exact same formula as the 1st LOTR movie; Fellowship of the Ring and therefore there is not much of originality. The music from this movie is not on par with the previous trilogy. There are some parts where we’ll hear “remixed” versions of the previous tracks and they stand above the rest, meaning the original music outshines and stands above the new movie music. But an exception should be given to the song titled “Song of the Lonely Mountain” which is absolutely spectacular. You’ll hear it if you stay long enough for the credit roll.

Overall, I really enjoyed The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. This is the first of the new trilogy. There are two more movies coming out; “The Desolation of Smaug” & “There and Back Again”, due for theatrical release in 2013 and 2014.

I’m finishing this review with a YouTube upload of Song of the Lonely Mountain. But I do wish you listen to it after the movie… because it makes such a good emotional feeling after that.



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