OK, so I saw The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey last night (at about 10:20 pm). And first of all, it is long. Like 3 hours and 20 minutes or something. So the movie ended after 1 am. Anyway, let's get right to the movie.
....alright, I have a confession to make. I've never actually seen Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy. Well, I did, but it was so long ago I've forgotten. I did see the first...eighth of The Fellowship of the Ring today, but wasn't able to see the rest. But I do know the great parts of the movies; the fight scenes, the drama, the acting....friggin' Gollum. So yeah, I was fairly excited to see The Hobbit on the big screen. I've only read two of the books, The Fellowship of the Ring, and The Hobbit. I found out that three Hobbit movies are going to be released. ...Ok, interesting. But I suppose they can get a few million bucks out of it, and to be fair, The Hobbit is a long book, and would take a long screentime to get through it all.
(And keep in mind, I don't know the actors' names or anything like that. I'm not a huge movie buff, but I know what I like.)
So, the movie begins with Bilbo writing down the story of his adventure to give to Frodo. He gives some backstory about a great fallen kingdom of dwarfs, which is a pretty cool scene. Yet, even at the beginning I saw my primary beef with the movie. To be honest....the CGI looks kind of cartoonish. I'm not sure if the other movies CGI looked like that, but I had to squint at the screen to tell if they were intentionally making it look that way. Oh, and don't worry. Gollum is still freaking awesome. I think they might have even gotten him better. But more on that later.
So yeah, Bilbo writes some history, and then talks to Frodo a bit, before beginning to think about the past (Yeah, it's a bit confusing, but mostly the first ten minutes in the movie take place before Gandalf arrives at the Shire). And...sorry, I just have to say this: The music is still amazing.
OK, I'm not going to go through the whole story, but I'm just going to touch on certain scenes. First, the feast with dwarfs. It's the customary "rambunctious guests", except that you actually get to enjoy how happy the dwarfs are. They're tossing food around to each other, laughing, talking, drinking. It's all actually fun to watch (though not to Bilbo). Heck, even Gandalf takes a shot of red wine. I guess that was before he got into tea. The dwarfs actually sing twice while at Bilbo's house. I don't remember exactly if the songs were in the book, but I'm pretty sure. And the songs aren't half bad. They sound like something that Dwarfs would sing, even if it is odd that one of the songs are sung completely out of nowhere and they're all singing the same words. The first song, laughing at how Bilbo wants the dwarfs to be careful with the dishware, is energetic, fun, and overall amusing. The second one is a lot more cultural (well, dwarf culture) and subtle. They sing a low, quiet song, almost like a hymn about how they'll one day get back their lost kingdom. The melody for that song is actually used quite a bit in this movie, not that I'm complaining.
So the movie actually follows the book quite well, to the extent of my knowledge. And even if they deviate from the book a bit, it's nothing like...The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. The fight scenes are still epic, the jokes, though they're few, are actually pretty amusing, even though if a few of them include burping or farting. But the CGI is mostly cartoonish, except for Gollum, a fight with rock giants, and maybe a pale orc. So yeah, it's kind of distracting. Oh, and by the way, the actors are great. You grow on the dwarfs, some more quickly than others, and the guy who plays Thorin, the "I don't like the new guy, he's not one of us" dude is a great actor. So no complains in the acting category. Even Saruman gets an appearance, and he's still awesome.
A few complaints though. The characters get a "just in time" save a few too many times. I mean, can't the orcs learn to swing that axe faster? And yes. No. One. In. The. Company. Dies. At all. I guess I can't really blame the moviemakers. I think that's what happened in the book.
My favorite part is probably the one with Gollum, of course. I think they even made his CGI better. You can see every wrinkle on his face! And his character didn't go down in quality either. He's both creepy, funny, downright scary, and pitiful at the same time. They did the riddles scene quite well, even though it was changed a bit. Heck, that's one of my favorite scenes from the book and I was nervous watching it. We also get a scene where Biblo puts on the ring and puts his sword against Gollum's neck. This was also in the book, and was meant to be a big moment. And this didn't disappoint. Gollum realizes that he's at Bilbo's mercy, and his eyes get big. He doesn't say anything, he doesn't do anything, the two of them just stay still. The scene isn't too long, but they do give it some time.
(Oh, and one of my favorite lines in the movie is the way Gollum says "time's up". He says it in a way you'd expect from a chess player or something. You can find it in trailers. It's pretty awesome.)
Ok, I've gone on long enough, so what's the final overview? Well, to start with the cons, the CGI is kind of cartoonish, even though Gollum still looks great. The company cheats death a few too many times, and....well, they end the movie at a point about halfway through the book. And they're two more movies to go! This might not be a bad thing, though, if the writers are planning to write some serious emotional scenes and really want to flesh them out. Or the other movies might be shorter, which would be nice. And the pros? The fights are awesome, the music is awesome, the acting is fine, Gollum is awesome, the drama is awesome, it's just all-around a great film. I wouldn't know if it's better than the other ones, but I might bet on it. I'd definitely encourage a watch.
