A lackluster return to Middle-Earth

Rating: 6/10 (29 March 2014)

For a long while Tolkien's work was deemed almost unfilmable. Yet, anyone who has seen 'The Lord of the Rings' knows this maxim is not true anymore. Peter Jackson did an excellent job in bringing to life Tolkien's masterpiece, so he decided to go back and also do his other introductory work: 'The Hobbit', an adventure that kinda sets up the events for the LotR adventure.
Yet, this time around Jackson didn't manage the same amount of success.
'The Hobbit' was already much more light-hearted, quasi-comedic in relation to its sequel, but 'An Unexpected Journey' goes a bit farther than needed. Far too much buffoonery, specially in its overlong introduction of the characters. Overlong introduction which, by the way, describes two points of my complaints against this.
Like with 'Fellowship of the Ring', this ends up as mostly an introductory chapter. This is comprehensible, as most of these characters weren't even on the LotR films; still, while 'Fellowship' introduced and made sure to give each character an uniqueness, 'Journey' does not. The company of dwarfs are mostly personality-less; other than Thorin and the old dwarf, all others end up as mere background characters to the point it is not worthy (nor necessary) trying to remember their names. The addition of even more plot elements, some of which weren't even in the book, also hurts this a lot.
Another problem is its length. Unlike LotR, 'The Hobit' is not big enough to warrant a trilogy (maybe two-parts, but not three). As such, Jackson has to make the film move at a snail's pace, dragging events and scenes far too long; at times, it makes what could have been a good scene boring and/or lose its impact/importance. Its terrible pace is such, this movie is almost 3-hour long when it could have been told and finished in mere 2-hours.
Not only that, Jackson (or possibly Guillermo Del Toro, who was originally the one to do the script) litters the film with unnecessary scenes/plots not from its original source. They still keep to the nature of Tolkien's world, true, like the bit with Radagast and the whole Orc plot line, but they are overtly unnecessary. Like when he did LotR, Peter Jackson seems insecure of his storytelling and public's reaction to it, and forcefully changes the source material to seem more 'mainstream' and 'attractive' to audiences.
As a result of its terrible pace and changes, the film drags on too much and takes away from the enjoyment, from the magic of Tolkien's mythos.
The film is still good, despite those flaws. It still retains the incredible visual quality of the LotR trilogy, which helps making its pace somewhat bearable; still, as good as its effects are, at points it feels like it is dragging on purposefully to show off them (ie.: the 'mountain fighting' scene, which was kinda ridiculous). The casting is great as well: not only the returners from LotR (Ian McKellen once again steals the show as Gandalf, and we also get Hugo Weaving, Christopher Lee, Cate Blanchett and even Andy Serkis as Gollum), but Martin Freeman is excellent as Bilbo (in special, his altercation with Gollum) and Richard Armitage as Thorin.
The action and adventure aspects of the story are very good and the film still is entertaining, though very far from 'Lord of the Rings' level.
Tolkien's characters and fantasy world is always good to watch, and Peter Jackson (despite all his insecurities) truly knows how to capture it in all its visual splendor; however, the film itself drags on to the point of boredom thanks to its horrendous pacing and the whole deviancy from the original storyline proves not only unneeded, but might actually put off the more rabid Tolkien followers.