Bill C’s Review – 2.5 out of 5
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is Peter Jackson’s follow-up to the mega-successful Lord of the Rings Trilogy with J. R. R. Tolkien’s first book. To cash in on the success of the trilogy movies (3 books = 3 movies), Jackson is splitting this single book into three movies, with the first installment being well over 2.5 hours long. The movie is well made and the action sequences are good, but the movie could have been much shorter.
Bilbo Baggins takes off with a large assortment of dwarves and Gandalf the wizard on the dwarves’ quest to retake their former home. With so many dwarves, I didn’t really come to care about their characters, and I felt that if they couldn’t win one of the battles, Gandalf (or someone/thing he summoned) would bail them out when necessary.
There was one sequence with Andy Serkis as Gollum, and for me, this scene was the highlight of the movie. Serkis was great and the scene was also excellent.
An Unexpected Journey did a good job of setting things up for the next two movies, but I was expecting more…in less time.
