A Very Expectedly Great Movie

Great But Different. 

This was a movie that might have suffered from a very common post-trilogy syndrome of trying to live up to its predecessors glory. Instead this movie gave a big old fuck you and decided to be completely different and it worked... well... in fact very very well.

The movie starts before the beginning of the Lord of the Rings trilogy with old Bilbo and Frodo, and Bilbo is recalling his story, as Frodo goes to wait for Gandalf in the woods, which is the first scene after the prologue in the original trilogy. The movie goes for a great while into detail about the dwarfs and the cave and the gold and the dragon and the setup for the next three movies, then it starts at the beginning of 'The Hobbit' book. It has multiple flashbacks to earlier times and different storyline which keeps it pretty excited for the first half and the movie which is slower then the second. The end of the movie doesn't creep up on your but comes with no real feeling of conclusion, obviously. 

An Unexpected Journey was perhaps the most entertaining movie I have seen all year, it had it all the underdog story, the fallen hero, and even romance (Not really... but I am still holding out for maybe the great sex scene of all time between Gandalf and Galads). It didn't take itself to seriously in the slightest but still maintained a sense of epicness, and adventure. There are very few things that aren't great about this movie. Although it lacked the original authentic feeling of the first movies. All the bad guys in the film were CGI and lacked the conviction of the dressed up, unrecognizable human that I love so much. Nonetheless it was still great to look at as CGI looks amazing now. 

For those that have read the book, it is quite different as you might expect because a movie made from the book would be terrible just like the book is. Simply put 'The Hobbit' is a children's story and not much else, but Peter Jackson has done a great job in adapting it for the screen. More then half of the movie probably isn't in the book, and its for the better, making it much for entertaining. There are scenes with storm giants and warges, orcs and necromancers and although not in the original story they were very fun to watch. If you went into the movie expected it to be like lord of the rings they you may be disappointed, it is completely different in nature its much lighter and entertaining.

I did decided to watch it in the new 48 frames per second instead of the normal 24 fps, and it was different, a little distracting at first but my eyes quickly adjusted and it was very smooth and looked much cooler especially during the fight scenes, I highly recommend it over the now outdated IMAX 3D theatre for amateurs. 

Overall, the movie was good just about what I expected from the trailers, different, less authentic, more entertaining then the original trilogy but still adventurous, epic, and heartfelt. A really fun movie to watch. 

Overall Rating

S-A-B-R-e