I have to say, for such a significant movie, this one didn’t have a lot of fanfare. At least nowhere near the Lord of the Rings movies did and I never understood why. Were there midnight showings? Of course, you can’t let the geekdome down. But their was very little media coverage, no real attention given, and let’s face it, the enthusiasm was gone.
This is especially vexing if you go back in time fifteen years and look at the fanfare surrounding the Phantom Menace. The hysteria surrounding the upcoming release of a new Star Wars was… well let’s just say it wasn’t cognizant of just how awful the movie was.
I can honestly say as a fan of J.R.R. Tolkien, a person who has read through his books (and old english translations are not easy mind you), and a person who has created his own fantasy/folklore series to the point where I even created an Elvish language of my own, verb conjugations and all, I went nuts when I heard about Lord of the Rings. I went even more crazy when the 5 hour versions were released… and yes I own the Ralf Bakshi Lord of the Rotoscope. But give me some credit, I don’t own the Rakin/Bass versions of anything.
Well let me just say this, after watching The Hobbit… I can see why the fanfare was gone. Let’s face it, it’s no Fellowship of the Ring, and it’s definitely no Return of the King… Two Towers? Oh don’t get me started!
On the surface, there was nothing particularly wrong with the movie. The story was good, the characters were believable. I was thrilled to see Radagast FINALLY get some credit in the Jackson version of Middle Earth… he was completely written out of Lord of the Rings. The problem is when you make a movie in a series that already has a lot of fanfare, you’re really under a lot of pressure to get it right. Geeks may be the most loyal crowd out there, but they are far from the most forgiving.
So you have the beautiful sets, you have returning stars like Cate Blanchett (my favorite), Christopher Lee, and even cameos of the Hobbits from Lord of the Rings. With all that put together, you must be asking yourself why I have a negative tone in this review.
Well to be honest… I didn’t hate this movie or even dislike it. I did like it, but I found it disappointing. It’s not the huge blockbuster hit I was hoping for and while good, it won’t be remembered as anything more than a footnote when compared to the original trilogy. The main reason for this being that it felt rushed!
At just under three hours long, it’s the shortest of the movies thus far. Where movies like the Fellowship of the Ring and Return of the King gave you time to soak up the scenery and become immersed in what was going on, The Hobbit almost seems like Jackson had the attitude that, “Okay they’ve seen the sets before, we don’t need to go spending extra time showing them this all over again.”
This may not be the case, and perhaps it’s more because the Hobbit is a long book and there is a lot to talk about, but as we all already know, he has three movies to flesh it all out. There is no reason to rush anything. So unlike Lord of the Rings where you got time to enjoy the green groves of Hobbiton or the majestic set of Rivendale, you were sped onward very quickly. You were really rushed to the ending and it felt like very little was accomplished in the way of their journey.
The other major concern with this movie is that one of its major stars Ian Mckellen, didn’t really successfully hide his age very well. Yes a good part of Lord of the Rings was that it established that Gandalf was an old man, and even made him dealing with the onset of senility comical in some ways. However, Gandalf’s voice in this movie seemed much more raspy and he definitely seemed like at times he was struggling. That said, I can’t find fault here, people get older, there is no way around it. Though someone could make that case that maybe it would have made more sense to make The Hobbit first, but I’ll let someone else take up that sword.
So in conclusion, is The Hobbit a bad movie? BY NO MEANS! It’s a beautiful tribute to the original story written by J.R.R. Tolkien. Is it as good as Lord of the Rings? Eh… no way… But once I put my expectations from Lord of the Rings aside and actually watched this movie with the mindset that it was supposed to come first, I did actually enjoy it very much. So yeah, don’t set the standard too high, just sit back and take it for what it is, and I guarantee you that this movie will make its way into any geek’s nitpicking heart.
The Character Critic 
This is an enjoyable movie, the action is intense, the technical aspects are outstanding, the story gets more interesting as it moves along and despite some characters I didn’t care for and a really slow hour or so, I still had fun watching it. Good review.