An Unexpected[ly long] Journey...

I saw The Hobbit last night, and I have to say I was underwhelmed. Now, I should preface my review here by saying that I missed the last 30 minutes of the movie, because the lights came on and movie shut off, and we were forced to evacuate due to a fire alarm. However, I can honestly say that I wasn’t that disappointed about having to head home.

I guess I should start by saying that the movie is not bad. It just lacked something; something that made the Lord of the Rings so exciting to watch. It might have been a mistake for Peter Jackson to try and stretch a small adventure book (smaller than any of the Lord of the Rings books) into three movies. I’m not sure what his motivation for doing so was, but if the goal was to include every last detail of the book (even the minutiae), then he accomplished that. There were just too many scenes where we watched the characters running, or looking out over the scenery. Some of that stuff is good, but too is much is, well…too much.

There were some exciting parts, and the actors for the most part did a good job. However, the development of the dwarves was a bit thin, even for Thorin, the main character. The first 20 minutes of the movie is spent telling the back story; most of which seemed superfluous to the story. We needed the main points, and then wanted to jump into the movie. The Lord of the Rings did a great job of this with the Galadriel voiceover, and explained everything in about 3 minutes.

It’s possible that the final 20 minutes of the movie really brought everything together for the first movie. Or, it’s possible that once the three movies have been released that the whole story will be a cinematic masterpiece. But, as of now, it seems that this movie was incredibly overwrought, like Jackson was simply trying to rehash his success in making Lord of the Rings, by remaking the movie with a different plot. And to the plot specifically; The Hobbit was a much lighter romp than the Lord of the Rings, but Jackson brought none of the light adventure that was possible, and instead tried to make the dwarves quest as being similar in significance and scope to that of the characters in the Lord of the Rings – which is isn’t.

Overall score: B-