The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012), Peter Jackson
- IMDB.COM: Rating: 8.3 (194,000+ votes); Metascore: 58 (40+ critics)
- ROTTEN TOMATOES: Tomatometer: 65% (166-255)
- TOP7 NEWSPAPERS: 58 AVG, no 4-star reviews
New Line Cinema needed nine solid years after the last TLOTR part to release The Hobbit: an Unexpected Journey, the first third of The Lord of the Rings prequel. The upcoming trilogy is based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s novel The Hobbit, a 300 pages long book with Shire’s Bilbo Baggins as the main protagonist. It’s not without a purpose that I mentioned the length of the book, for it is one of the more direct problems with this part (as will probably be the case with the other two, respectfully). For so scarce a material, 170 minutes of action are bound to have moments – or the entire scenes – that cannot adeptly justify their existence nor properly show their significance for the main story. At times, An Unexpected Journey behaves so idly on the screen it almost looks like a raw, unedited material. Second, the fire that ignited TLOTR rekindles mainly thanks to our sweeping nostalgia for the latter. The movie feeds of its predecessor – acting sporadically like a parasite – in a way which never would have happened if Guillermo Del Toro hadn’t left as the head of the project. I still think highly of Peter Jackson, don’t get me wrong, but somewhere between The Return of the King and An Unexpected Journey, his drive to create a true epic project morphed into an ambition to achieve spectacular juggernaut series built on past fame and future technology. It’s as if his early 80s inner Spielberg became late 2000s inner Steven. Bigger production and genre experience don’t help the cause here. Nor does the high frame rate of 48 fps.
EUPHORICFX GRADE:
