Review - "The Hobbit - An Unexpected Journey"

I came into this movie never having read the novel, so keep that in mind. I will start with the running time....2hrs 45 mins. Didn't need to be that long. Director Peter Jackson has a tendency to draw things out, sometimes longer than they need to be (“King Kong” anyone? Even though I liked his take on it, was too long) and in this case, it wasn't needed, in my opinion. Now let me clarify that statement by saying I was never bored the entire run of the movie, it just felt like things could have been tightened up a bit.

On to the actual movie....highly entertaining. Like most, I couldn't remember the names of all 13 of the Dwarves, but I didn't need to , they were all distinct enough that I could always tell who was who. Obviously the focus was only going to be on a few of the Dwarves, and it seems like a few kinda got lost in the shuffle. But with that many characters to juggle, it's bound to happen. It was a slow build up to things actually getting moving, but it kept my attention, which is most important. There was a lot of humor, the action was fun and easy to follow, thanks for no shaky cam Mr Jackson.

From what I understand, the Radghast The Brown character was made for the movie and not part of the original story. While I didn't mind the character, and thought he was well done, I haven't decided if he was actually necessary to add to the movie.I felt that his whole purpose was to introduce this Necromancer character, which we never see, and I felt like they could have at least given us a glimpse of the character. I was also a little disappointed we didn't get to see more of Smaug the Dragon, we barely see him in the beginning and a tiny glimpse later on. It feels like they are saving things for the next two movies. I feel like they could have taken the material from three movies to make two leaner movies.

Despite my criticisms, I overall enjoyed the movie very much, heck I even teared up at one point thanks to a very touching scene. The visual effects were well done. I loved the Goblin city sequence, and the stone giant scene was also very good, and the Trolls were really funny, I loved that scene as well. The ending was tense and exciting. The musical score was also excellent. Performances were good all around...Martin Freeman as Bilbo was just great, he had the presence that the character demanded. Ian McKellen was his usual great self, and Andy Serkis brings Gollum to glorious life again, save for some unintelligible dialogue. Nice to see Hugo Weaving and Christopher Lee in there as well. I definitely want to see the next two movies, I just wish they hadn't felt the need to stretch this tale out over three movies. Regardless, a solid effort all around.