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719 out of 1117 people found the following review useful:
Yeahhhh! Graphics! Action scenes! AWESOOOME!, 16 December 2012

Author: dlpburke from United Kingdom

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Let's kick off with the score I've given it. 5/10. That's for the reasonable job with the comedy, design, and things not related to story and pacing (with the exception of Gollum and the cave scene). I am tired of saying "The graphics are great, but..." I have rated it 1 here to reduce the average in order to reflect reality and not the fanboy love-in.

I am not going to sugar-coat this film or give it a good review just because people tell me I should. I am sick to death of sheep. I don't care if this is Tolkien or Jackson or how much money it took to make the film. If it's bad, it's bad.

Graphics count for nothing. The reason I watch a film is primarily for a great story and well written characters (I have to CARE about what is going on). I don't get dazzled by graphics anymore (if I ever did at all), and 3D action films do not make a film good. So right there is the problem with The Hobbit. The story is shallow and pretentious and cardboard. Let's run through why the film had me rolling my eyes throughout:

- The introduction is way too long.

-The pacing is dire (and scenes that weren't in the book have been added).

-One brainless action scene after another for no other reason than to eat screen time (because the book is 300 pages and they are trying to maximise profits by having 3 films at 3 hours each). Watching 2 rock monsters fight for minutes is not captivating or cool, it's boring.

-Implausibility factor 10. I understand this is a fantasy. I understand that if everything was ultra realistic it would end up boring, but for heaven sake, that does not mean you can get away with what happens in this film. EVERY single scene shows something that would ordinarily kill someone. Fall down multiple ravines, battle 100's goblins with just a few men, rocks the size of cars flying at you... and no scratches, no deaths. It just doesn't work.

-Lazy writing. You know you are witnessing a lazy-ass story when your heroes are saved at the last minute EVERY time in multiple scenes. Where does that leave us? It leaves us with all main characters intact and no dramatic tension. Every scene you see a massive rock crush a character you know they aren't dead. Every time you see them perilously close to the edge of a cliff, you know that even if they fall, they will be saved and/or survive. Further to this point, smaller problems exist such as Bilbo never handling a sword to suddenly taking on killer beasts like he has been to He-Man training school.

-Cliché crap. The way Bilbo goes from being an outcast to being accepted is contrived and rushed and totally obvious. It just smacks of lazy cliché writing. The acting that goes with it is not good either. Kind of like "I once said... you weren't one of us... OH how wrong I was!" *Roll eyes time*. Then you have the White Orc that Thorin said he had slain, and you just KNEW it was coming back at the end for some sort of showdown, didn't you? Talk about obvious. I blame the film for this because the scenes involved in the exposition were way too see-through... might as well have had Thorin wink at the camera! That brings me onto the whole "Thorin dislikes Elves" angle, where you know the Elves are suddenly going to become important allies just so we can have a totally obvious and expected reversal. Wow, Thorin, you got Bilbo wrong and you got the Elves wrong too! DRAMA.

-Lack of character development (Think Final Fantasy XII if you are a gamer). This was the stake through the heart of this film... Most of the dwarfs are completely redundant and I could not identify or even accept Bilbo. This was due partly to the lack of character development, partly to the script and partly to the actor. Same goes for Thorin except the scenes he is in feel more like a bad soap opera than they do a "blockbuster" film.

It is just dull and lifeless and stupid. You shouldn't do things just because you can. The LOTR trilogy for the most part had decent pacing, and it didn't do things too fast, too soon, or for the sake of it. The original trilogy suffers from some the complaints above AT TIMES, but nothing like The Hobbit does... The Hobbit is in a league of its own. I went to watch an engaging movie and I got a cartoon.

The use of CGI is also glaringly obvious and fake; like with the prequels of Star Wars, when the movie cuts between humans and CGI blobs, your brain is onto it. Stop relying on CGI for everything. It's getting annoying, not to mention OLD. At least Jackson makes real sets so it isn't a total wash out.

There is some real potential in this film and it is squandered; whether that's because Tolkien wrote a flawed book, whether it is because he wrote a book that doesn't take well to a feature length movie or whether it is because Jackson messed it up, that's what we ended up with.

The Hobbit should have been 2 films, and making it 3 has been the final nail in the coffin.

So, I am sat here mightily annoyed that once again graphics and self indulgent, completely pointless action scenes have trumped good storytelling and pacing.

Of course, the film is still entertaining at times and the 3D visuals are fun, but for me it is a massive disappointment.

Visuals can not MAKE a film, but when used like in The Hobbit, they sure as hell can break it.

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435 out of 649 people found the following review useful:
An Unexpected Disappointment, 13 December 2012

Author: Kasper Cockx from Belgium

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

I was convinced the (many) criticisms I read beforehand were exaggerated and wouldn't bother me. To my surprise, quite some criticisms seemed justified in the end ...

***THE SCRIPT***

ADDITIONS: On paper, the additions looked like a great way to create added value. However, while I understand why they included them, they all feel out of place.

- Opening scene: Ian Holm just looks too dissimilar from his appearance in FOTR (especially his haircut), which is really distracting. The frame story doesn't blend in naturally and the history of Erebor has too much to show in too little time.

- Radagast: He appears as suddenly as he disappears. His scene in Dol Guldur really threw me out of the movie.

- The White Council: I know the screenwriters want to underline the growing dark powers (hence the - preposterous - finding of the Morgul blade), but the empty talk about things of which we all know how they've played out in the LOTR films isn't convincing at all.

- Azog: An appallingly one-dimensional character, who feels most out of place (the fact that he looks like a creature from a cheap horror movie also doesn't help ...). His scenes have a strange "un-Tolkien" vibe, particularly the battle of Azanulbizar (the worst scene of the movie), which doesn't feel like a fierce and thrilling battle at all.

FROM THE BOOK: The episodic structure prevents the film from having a fluid narrative and squeezes the tension out of every new dangerous situation: the events just leave you cold.

In the book, we experience everything through Bilbo's eyes, which creates a strong connection between the reader and the main part. This is missing from the movie: Bilbo even seemed to have more or less disappeared between the troll encounter and the stone giants' battle. His homesickness, his doubts, all of this isn't really developed in the script.

The emphasis on Thorin is a good thing, but also not perfect: during the enclosure by the Wargs, I didn't buy Thorin's charge towards Azog and especially Bilbo's sudden "action hero saves the day in the nick of time" intervention. The latter seemed like a very inappropriate way to illustrate Bilbo's courage.

There were actually only two great scenes: Riddles in the Dark is amazing, but ironically, it also painfully shows how mediocre the rest of the movie actually is, because this is the only moment that comes close to the level of LOTR. Also, Bilbo's speech after they've escaped Goblin Town is a very welcome, for rare touching moment.

***THE PACING***

It's quite astonishing some people complain about the pacing, because the film was over before I knew it. In fact, I think the pacing is about just right and proved it would have been really difficult to adapt the book in just one fully-fledged movie. But since I didn't like the additions, I'm doubting whether a third film is necessary after all (but I suspend my judgment until 2014).

***THE CINEMATOGRAPHY***

One of the biggest (unpleasant) surprises is the cinematographic style. I'm not talking about the bright colors or the digital images, but the (lack of physical) camera use. Whereas LOTR has stunning "real" camera movements and an extremely accomplished "handicraft" feel, AUJ often feels like a video game. The camera is flying and whirling so limitlessly that it just doesn't feel like an authentic movie anymore. This is particularly apparent during the Orc chase and above all the absurd Goblin Town escape. The CGI is perfect, but too much is just too much.

***THE MUSIC***

After my long list of complaints, I'm truly relieved to say there is at least one thing that unconditionally gets my support, which is the score. The people who unfairly label Howard Shore's work as a "re-hash of LOTR" obviously didn't pay full attention, because when you listen to the score multiple times (and I admit it also took me several spins to really appreciate it), you discover a new rich and diverse musical tapestry once again masterfully woven by Shore. OF COURSE you hear the same themes when EXACTLY THE SAME places are visited as in "The Fellowship of the Ring" ... If someone deserves credit for "The Hobbit", it's Shore: his music is in my view the only aspect of the movie on par with the level of LOTR.

***3D & 48 FPS***

- The 3D was good, no complaints about that. However, although I have no problems with watching movies in 3D, I start questioning its necessity.

- I am bewildered many people claim that 48 fps creates a "TV-look" with "actors with clear make-up on a fake set". I didn't have that feeling at all, but on the other hand - and this was the most surprising - the difference with 24 fps isn't THAT spectacular. After 30 minutes, I even had to remind myself: "Oh, I'm watching 48 fps, right?". Yes, the images look very clear and it does smooth fast movements, but the latter (which is positive) only sticks out a couple of times (and no, the motion never comes across as "sped up", so I was never distracted by the higher frame rate). All in all, I consider 48 fps to be an improvement over 24 fps (without diminishing the "cinematic" look of a film), but I didn't have the feeling I had witnessed a "revolutionary new cinema experience".

***** CONCLUSION *****

I didn't expect (or want) a replica of LOTR, but while "The Hobbit" isn't a bad movie, it isn't good either. I'm still perplexed I don't feel any urge to go see it again, unlike the LOTR films. We can only hope that Jackson recovers in time to save the next two films from unnecessary additions, lack of focus on Bilbo and a video game feeling. Well, at least we have new brilliant music to listen to!

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336 out of 458 people found the following review useful:
Huge LOTR fan and very disappointed, 16 December 2012

Author: Eric from United States

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Peter Jackson's return to the world of Tolkien is rather weak. At first I was against the idea of such a small book being made into a trilogy. I still am. Many say not to compare this film to the far superior "Lord of the Rings" trilogy. Well, it's hard not to considering Jackson has tried so hard to recreate the style of the original films because that's what the audience wants. But he fails big time.

The bizarre, unfunny, slapstick humor is painful. This involves snot jokes, burping, poop hair, and lame one-liners. Don't give me the "it's based on a children's book" crap. Sure, the source material was written for children but I'm talking about the movie. Adding all this stupid humor really messes with the tone; it doesn't feel like it belongs in the LOTR universe which "The Hobbit" is trying so hard replicate. The film will go from trying to be epic to pathetic gags. It doesn't work. I don't mind a little humor occasionally but this is just overdone and it makes the film feel very unbalanced.

Now to the pacing. Many say the beginning is slow but they're wrong. The entire film is slow! Radagast's involvement is pointless and his bunny sled is ridiculous. We also get to see Saruman and Galadriel in a boring scene that has absolutely no relevance to the main narrative. Wait, what exactly is "The Hobbit" about again? Apparently Jackson is trying to make connections with LOTR, but "Fellowship of the Ring" already explains past events pretty well. Seriously, all the LOTR fanboy pleasing scenes could have been left out (including Frodo). But no, we need them in order to have enough material for the trilogy. Not good.

And I understand that Jackson is taking material from the appendices of LOTR. I wouldn't have a problem with this if all these extra scenes actually advanced the plot. But the White Council just talks and they never decide to act on anything. Also, that scene has NOTHING to do with the dwarfs reclaiming their homeland. At least in "Fellowship" the plot makes major advancements but in "The Hobbit" the story hardly goes anywhere.

Let's discuss the action. It's like watching a video game. The main orc villain, Azog, looks fake. Everything is CGI overload; there's no tension. Characters survive unbelievable situations. Compare the ending orc scene in this film to the one in "Fellowship." Huge difference. Unfortunately everything in "The Hobbit" is cartoonish. Not to mention most of the action has no impact on the story whatsoever.

Now to the characters. Gandalf is great but that is to be expected. Martin Freeman does fine as Bilbo but his transition from weakling to hero happens a little too quickly and feels unrealistic. Thorin is your typical warrior like character; I didn't care for him too much. Bifur is probably my favorite of all the dwarfs (hold on, I just searched his name and realized I got the wrong one, his name is BOFUR, my bad). All the other dwarfs are just there and if you were to ask me to name them and describe something about their character, I couldn't do it. And I'm sure you couldn't either.

But the film does have some good. We get to see Bilbo and Gollum interact in an iconic scene. The finding of the Ring is also significant and is really the only scene that should have any connection with LOTR unlike Galadriel, Frodo, etc. And that's about it. Honestly, nothing really happens. While watching "The Hobbit" you kind of forget about the main adventure because of all the padding. Then at the end you're like, "Oh yeah, there's a dragon." Maybe the second film will improve.

It's such a shame that "The Hobbit" ended up being a drawn-out, bloated, boring mess that lacks compelling characters and an engaging story. I really wanted to love it but it's hard not to ignore the many problems. I couldn't wait to return to Middle-earth but now I'm not sure if I want to go back to this new cartoon version. Hopefully improvements will be made in the sequels but after witnessing this my hopes aren't too high. All these years of anticipation and this is what we get...

*IMDb auto corrects the plural word for "dwarf" when it really should be dwar(ves)

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945 out of 1683 people found the following review useful:
Nothing short of a masterpiece., 1 December 2012

Author: chapy004 from United States

Best of the best. Pete has crafted a masterpiece. I should say at this point, I am a new fan of LOTR movies after seeing this movie. My friends and family always told me I should watch the previous 3 films and now i cant wait to sit down with a bowl of popcorn and witness the magnificent scale and perfect execution that The Hobbit: an Unexpected Journey brought to all 5 senses of mine. Maybe I could count The Hobbit in as a SIXTH sense. It was just THAT good.

First of all, the 48fps was just beautifully sharp and clean to the eyes. It was a touch of technological wizardry by Jackson, and it worked perfectly, allowing the viewer to feel as he/she were a spying picture frame on Bilbo's fireplace, or a pine tree looking over a cliff and down at Rivendell. It seems far fetched, but lets just say I forgot I was watching a movie, and you can experience for yourself, what I mean.

The execution was fabulous as well; the pacing, the shot angles, the acting, the script, and so much more. The score by Howard Shore was so clever and is sure to put a smile on your face. The WHOLE movie will put a smile on your face. The Hobbit will remind you that you can do great things, no matter how small.

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511 out of 842 people found the following review useful:
The rather numerous negative professional reviews almost made me lose hope. Turns out they were wrong. The Hobbit is a fantastic film., 13 December 2012

Author: Munin75 from France

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

First of all, let me first say that while I enjoyed the LOTR trilogy, and admired the directorial and technical greatness of it, I'm no LOTR fanboy, and I also recognize its flaws. I'm saying this so that one understands that I'm not the type of person who will blindly speak greatly of any film of the Tolkien/Jackson series if I don't feel it deserves it.

This being said, I have difficulties understanding some of the negative professional reviews which said The Hobbit is a failed attempt, and not as good as LOTR. The artistic and directing style are exactly the same (so I won't comment on this more). I also wasn't expecting to like the 48 fps since I'm the kind of guy who squints even at high definition TVs, but surprisingly, I thought it looked great in The Hobbit, and I think 48 fps is the future. There are slow moments in The Hobbit, broken regularly by excitingly over the top action scenes. Again, just like LOTR - so I don't see why one would like the original trilogy and not The Hobbit.

The Hobbit is perhaps a little less dark in tone than LOTR, considering the source material which is more of a children's book, but it's clearly not a children's movie anyway, and displays many exciting and stressful moments. It also offers something more than the LOTR, that is five genuinely important villains right then and there. The dragon Smaug, in this first film, is like Sauron in the LOTR. A distant, mysterious figure who is the ultimate goal of the quest, whom we don't see much of yet, but we know it's going to be brutal. The "necromancer" is mostly alluded. Those who know the book will know who that is, and he'll surely be important in the sequels. Azog, the giant orc, is a main villain and is much more appealing than the Uruk-hai chief in Fellowship of the Ring, or any other orc villain in the LOTR series. The Goblin King also has a strong key role in the movie. And of course, Gollum, who's riddle scene with Bilbo is fantastic.

Martin Freeman as Bilbo is superb and there couldn't be a better choice. The rest of the cast is pitch perfect as well. While the 13 dwarfs are too many for us to get to know each and every one of them well enough by the end of this first movie, I didn't feel it was a downer. We got to know at least a third sufficiently - and I'm sure we'll get to learn about and appreciate the rest in the subsequent films - this allows us to still have characters to discover later on.

Anyway, great film. I think it's better than Fellowship, and I'll be seeing it again for sure and can't wait for the sequels.

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329 out of 516 people found the following review useful:
An unexpected disappointment, 13 December 2012

Author: markdroulston from New Zealand

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

"All great stories deserve a little embellishment." So says Gandalf the Grey (Ian McKellen) in the most telling line in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, Peter Jackson's return to the world of JRR Tolkien. It's a line that clearly outlines Jackson and his co-writers' intentions, yet it comes off as a veiled apology, as if the film-making team knew that what they have created is going to be problematic for die-hard Middle Earth fans. Sadly, Jackson's new film doesn't come close to silencing the skeptics like his Lord of the Rings films did, and is actually more ill-conceived than expected.

Things that do work well for the most part in The Hobbit are sequences that come directly from the source novel. Iconic scenes, such as the arrival of the dwarfs at Bag End or the encounter with the trolls are handled pretty well, despite being padded out to unnecessary lengths with lame gags and pointless alteration of the original events in the book. Juggling such a massive primary cast is obviously a challenge, and as such the film's best moments involve only one or two characters, with Bilbo's (Martin Freeman) meeting of Gollum (Andy Serkis) and the finding of the ring being a particular stand-out sequence, the only one that seemed like it could have used more time.

However, all of the good work that Jackson & Co do with the direct source material is swamped by the content they felt they had to develop themselves. The great achievement of the LOTR films is how they managed to distill the huge source novels to their most important story beats, only hinting at most of the wider story in a way that brought incredible richness to the world in which they take place. With The Hobbit though, Jackson only has a 300 page novel to start with, and the decision to make three lengthy films, I assume to parallel the first trilogy, is precisely why this first film doesn't work.

The Hobbit should be allowed to stand alone as its own film, but it is structured in such a way, almost identically to the first LOTR entry The Fellowship of the Ring, that it's all but impossible not to compare them. As a side-effect, the much lighter tone will be jarring for a lot of established franchise fans, the very people the film seems to be primarily aimed at. The chase sequence in the goblin tunnels for example is little more than an updated version of the Moria scenes from LOTR. It's exciting enough, but much of the action feels in service of the film- making technology on display rather than the story, and as such none of the stakes of the earlier films are built here.

Where the LOTR films had to keep moving at such a pace to fit everything in, The Hobbit dwells on unnecessary moments which had only the briefest of mentions in the novel to reach its 2 hour 49 minute runtime. Most damaging are the call backs linking the previous trilogy, setting up what is likely to be an almost completely new story bridge between the two trilogies in the third film due in 2014. There is absolutely no reason for Frodo (Elijah Wood), Saruman (Christopher Lee), and Galadriel (Cate Blanchett) to appear in this story, yet here they are, taking us away from a perfectly good narrative about a quest to fight a dragon. It reeks of cynical franchise care, and arguably disrespectful to the carefully crafted world that Tolkien created.

There's a good movie somewhere in The Hobbit, and had Jackson shown more restraint we might have seen it. The film could easily lose at least 45 minutes, but it feels as if director feels so beholden to his previous work that he needs to deliver an epic on the scale of LOTR. But that's not what this book is, and we're left with an uneasy balance - the lighter tone to distinguish this as a separate story but a strict adherence to the LOTR structure - but ultimately doesn't fulfill either side.

tinribs27.wordpress.com

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273 out of 428 people found the following review useful:
Critics are right fans wrong, 18 December 2012

Author: Hurleyfanboy from Finland

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

First came the original trilogy, a popular success and critically acclaimed. Then, some years later, a second trilogy began, a prequel to the original, and the first installment of this second trilogy turned out to be awful. We saw this pattern play out once, with "Star Wars," and now, alas, it begins again, with "The Hobbit," a movie that is exactly one Jar Jar Binks away from being as bad as "The Phantom Menace." The problem may be built into the design. The previous "Lord of the Rings" films were each based on a single book. "The Hobbit" - more like a children's novel than the other three, a kind of "Tom Sawyer" to their "Huckleberry Finn" - is just one book, smaller than any of the other J.R.R. Tolkien books, and yet it is being blown out into three enormous films. This first installment runs 169 minutes.

This puts a lot of pressure on a simple story, especially when you consider that director Peter Jackson and his screenwriters really can't take liberties with the tale, not without incurring the wrath of millions. They must work with what they have, and what they have is quite enough for one pleasing and inventive two-hour movie - or a nine-hour disaster stretched over three years.

This pressure, this obligation to stretch everything to the limits of endurance and beyond, is felt from the film's early minutes. Howard Shore's beautiful theme music, from the previous trilogy, filters in. We see the idyllic Middle-earth countryside and are introduced to Martin Freeman as Bilbo Baggins - Freeman was born to be a hobbit; he is ideal casting - and we settle in for a magical experience. And then, slowly, a fatal distance opens up between what we're hoping and what we're actually seeing.

Bilbo is a happy hobbit, a homebody who enjoys his creature comforts and doesn't have a violent impulse about him. Yet he is recruited by Gandalf the Grey Wizard (Ian McKellen) to join an expedition by dwarfs to retake their homeland from a dragon. See how quickly it takes to say that? Bilbo is recruited. Period. Yet the movie takes this tiny bit of crucial plot movement and dilutes its effectiveness: The dwarfs show up for an impromptu party at Bilbo's house. Bilbo frets about what the dwarfs will do to his house. Then the dwarfs clean up. Then Bilbo says he won't join their fight. But then he does. The film milks every detail of the text, every hint of vacillation in the main character, to turn water flowing downstream into molasses walking uphill.

It must be said that if you plan to enjoy "The Hobbit," it really helps to love dwarfs. Others may prefer hobbits - they're adorably idiosyncratic, small, chubby, eat all day, have big ears, and they're incredibly sincere. Still others may prefer the Olympian elves - beautiful, pristine, sure and eternal. But there is only one hobbit in the entire movie, and only one brief sequence involving elves. Otherwise you're stuck with the dwarfs, who are like Vikings - boorish, slovenly, hearty and heavy-drinking - and not exactly lovable.

The three "Lord of the Rings" were heavy on battle scenes, but "The Hobbit" is almost nothing but battles. Without a stopwatch, it would be hard to know for sure, but probably 50 percent of screen time is taken up with fighting - perhaps up to 80 percent if you count planning for and recovering from battles. Some of these battles have pockets of interest: A conflict with goblins plays out like a trapeze act, in three dimensions, with the combatants falling through space, landing and regrouping. But most of "The Hobbit" is like looking over Peter Jackson's shoulder to watch a computer screen.

Occasionally, when the smoke clears, we get a glimpse of what "The Hobbit" might have been, had Freeman's quirkiness and humanity been given a chance to set the tone. The movie really springs to life only when Freeman dominates, as when Bilbo falls into a cave and discovers Gollum, looking like James Carville but acting like Peter Lorre. It's an encounter worthy of the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy - so is the all-too-brief scene between Gandalf and Galadriel (Cate Blanchett).

If you loved the earlier films, these are moments you will hold on to, but they're very few, and they're not enough.

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194 out of 290 people found the following review useful:
I'm trying to keep an open mind here, but I just cant!, 19 December 2012

Author: renoriders

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

I was about 8 years old when I was first introduced to the Hobbit from the animated 1 hour movie. The movie was a yearly event. As a child, it freaked me out. But, my Dad loved Glenn Yarbrough and the music, so, I was made to sit through it.

Since that time, I eventually appreciated the storyline of that silly cartoon and the characters from it. And, when I grew up, I read the book, and then the LOTR series and fell in love with them.

I think that you have to look at this movie from 2 points of view. From 1. Viewers like myself who fell in love with the books and original characters and are looking for some semblance of that universe in a movie. 2. Viewers, like my kids, who have never read the books and are fascinated by animated computer novels, games, and the unrealistic expectations of immortality in virtual super humans.

If you are type 1. You will hate this movie. It fell short of all of my expectations. The Hobbit is not an epic story. In other words, this story was short, a 300 page book. It was, however, an epic adventure seen through the eyes of a single character, a character who had a realistic perspective of his small contribution to the world around him. His character never wavered from that perspective as he watched events unfold and did what little he could to contribute and help. He never became the grandiose, cocky, tempered tough guy that this movie seems to try to portray him as.

"The Hobbit" was a story that sets up the universe that these characters lived in. Elves, Goblins, Orcs, Hobbits and Humans and other creatures defined their roles in this world and their conflicts. Then, the story moves on to show how a band of characters, plus the Hobbit, interacts in this world and the story unfolds giving a lesson and a way to perceive our own world and how we, as individuals, interact with it. It's a simple message, yet, the book finds a way to make this message profound giving the characters depth and meaning and focusing on the hobbit as one individual, insignificant in his eyes, in an amazing world. This most basic message which encompasses the entirety of the book is completely, 100% lost in the movie. The one line in the movie, by Gandalf, which was never spoken in the book, but, was the most significant and meaningful in this movie was, "All good stories need to be embellished a little..." That was an understatement.

If you are type 2, you might enjoy this movie. Tons of action, crazy cgi, most of the film is animated, and it attempts to tie into and be a prequel for the LOTR trilogy. Lot's of battles and fighting, immortal death defying falls (just like any computer game) that serves no purpose to define our mortality (since no one dies or even gets injured), last second cliff hanger rescues, gross ugly characters that sound goofy and look like Jar Jar Binks on steroids, pretty scenery, loud noises, explosions, more bad guys killed per second that you can shake a stick at and pretty much any other Hollywood formula that draws in money. And, that was just one movie in a trilogy that has no purpose other than to make lots and lots of money.

I took the Kids to watch this and spared no expense. IMax screen, popcorn, Icees, candy and some snacks. $100 down the toilet. The kids fell asleep during the first hour and I wanted to leave after the 2nd.

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134 out of 193 people found the following review useful:
Soulless commercial ride on the Hollywood roller-coaster, 25 December 2012

Author: Bayandur Pogosyan from Armenia

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

THE QUALITY OF THE FILM Imagine "Spy Kids" with elements of Tolkien's writing. Technological demonstration, a large budget at the hands of a tasteless creative group. The CG animation of trolls was almost as ugly as in the Lord of the Rings. The only reason of making it 3D was making me cope with the uncomfortably of 3D. The dwarf parcour and scenes copied from the Lord of the Rings (compare the fight of Thorin and Azog with that of Isildur and Sauron), artificially added action-scenes and castrated non-action scenes spoke of lazy, commercial, mainstream work. Radagast's animal companions were Walt Disney's "Snow-white" bad.

THE PLOT The poor novella (yep, Lord of the Rings is a novel trilogy, The Hobbit - only a small novella, yet both amount a trilogy of films) was so stretched out that the original and added material could be equal to each other. And whatever was taken from the book, was mutilated for reasons unknown: in the book, Azog is a goblin, not an orc, and is killed by Dain, not Thorin, and his son Bolg replaced him in Moria. The "stone giants" are only a dwarf legend about thunder. Radagast isn't a main character in any Tolkien work I know, because he doesn't give a damn about the wars of humans, elves and the rest. The Dol Guldur conflict and the ousting of the Necromancer actually has nothing to do with "The Hobbit". There is no toilet humor in the scene with trolls - in the book, Gandalf gives the trolls advice in troll voice, makes them change their mind so many times that dawn comes. In the movie - a troll blows his nose on Bilbo, then Bilbo starts a lecture on tapeworms. An awful lot of cliché ("NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!", "I'm sure we're through the worst" *Dumb Dumb Dumb* DRAGON'S WOKEN UP!!!). It was made so it would please a diaper-wearing kid, but don't make them sad. I hate the tragic scene->happy end formula, which was abused, raped, killed, buried, taken out of the grave, raped again in this film.

THE HEROES The heroes were lacking any defining traits so intense in the book. Only a Hollywood template - smart-mouthed guys with tactless jokes. They were given one-liners/catchphrases to define them instead. It wasn't always easy to see the difference between certain dwarfs and the Great Goblin. In the book dwarfs are polite, but dry and greedy. In the book - kind-hearted heroic men, a bit stubborn, and loving to troll people now and then. Bilbo's not a conservative gentleman hobbit, who gets carried away by his curiosity for adventure, but a timid teenager. Gandalf isn't a powerful mage, but a well-informed homeless guy, Radagast is another one, and a schizophrenic in addition. Might as well fit in in Terry Gilliam's "The Fisher King" (awesome movie btw). Actually, there was no Bilbo character at all: there was a combined character of Frodo, Sam, Mery, Pin from LOTR.

Verdict - if you want Tolkien, read the book. The movie isn't worth watching even once.

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605 out of 1135 people found the following review useful:
One of the best movies (of any kind) I've ever seen, 3 December 2012

Author: sbalkam from Washington, DC

The movie is amazing. It is unlike anything I've ever experienced in a cinema. The vividness of the colors and light and movement is something to behold. And then the 3D takes it all to another level. It was a little unnerving at times. Almost as if I was watching a hybrid of a movie and a live action performance.

The scenery is, of course, gorgeous. The acting is light, fun, playful while also managing to stay true to the original story. There is a little too much of the side stores for my liking. And it could well have been cut by a half hour or so and still not lost any of it impact and appeal.

Martin Freeman is a revelation. Knowing him from The Office (I lived in the UK for a while) it hardly seemed plausible that he could carry off such a role, but he is very believable. The merry band of dwarfs are well played and you somehow get to know each of them by the end of the film. The special effects are, well, special. We were ducking as rocks and boulders came flying out at us and I swear there was a bird floating over our heads at one point. The surround sound was rich and evocative of the caves and the music is lush and emotional.

As for the main story, well, apart from doing a prelude that reprises the role of Frodo and older Bilbo Baggins, it pretty much stays true to the text - with some audience members anticipating what the characters were going to say next.

A word of warning - some of the battle scenes are very intense, made more so by the 3D and high definition used along with the sound effects. You may want to think long and hard about taking young kids to it.

But for everyone else, particularly the young at heart, this first installment of The Hobbit is a gem.

(note: I was very fortunate to see The Hobbit in Wellington last week. I was there on business and through a friend of a friend I landed a ticket. I was in in Cinema 1 of the Reading Cinemas - one of the two cinemas that premiered the film last Wednesday.)

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