A fun time

Rating: 9/10 (19 January 2019)

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is truly a great adventure movie that is, along with the two other movies in the trilogy, unfortunately often compared to the three greatest movies of its genre (LOTR). While this movie has its issues I feel like its still a great time and a welcome addition to the Middle-Earth movies.
First, let's get the negatives out of the way. This movies relies very heavily on CGI. The CGI does stand out but even though I would prefer the minimal use of CGI, the CGI used for certain characters and animals in the film doesn't look bad per se, it just gives it a more "childish" or less serious tone. I don't mind having this less-darker feel to a movie that is based off of a book mainly written for children. The use of CGI instead of real locations in many instances has claimed a lot of criticism but I must say the CGI used for creating locations is very well done and I can't really fathom the often drawn parallers to the Star Wars prequels when it comes to CGI for crafting locations.
Another "issue" with this film is its runtime. At almost 3 hours, the film does feel a bit too long for me. The film could have easily been cut shorter thus some sequences feeling drawn out or just out of place. The film spends a lot of time in Shire which is totally fine by me because that way we can get to know the main characters of our story better. However, I feel like the scenes featuring Radagast the Brown in the forest feel a little bit out of place because even though the scenes are important to the overall plot, they are not too important for the plot of this movie.
A lot of criticism has also been given to the personalities of the dwarwes or should I say the lack of. Yes, even though we spend practically the whole movie with the dwarwes we still barely even remember their names. I truly feel like this was an issue that couldn't really be avoided in a "The Hobbit" movie no matter the director. I feel like Peter Jackson, the actors performing the dwarwes and the costume artists, make-up artists etc. do a reallt good job in bringing life to those characters. We learn small things about the dwarwes and get an idea of some of their personality traits.
Then to the main positives.
The score of this film is absolutely magnificent. The sound design in general is along with the visuals (in all fairness that's what you expect from a movie with this sort of budget.)
The acting. Martin Freeman is the perfect Bilbo and when I read through some of the other possibilities for Bilbos role, I am truly happy Martin Freeman was the choice. Ian McKellen as Gandalf is obviously a major positive. There is something so wonderfully soothing about his line delivery. I would also like to point out Richard Armitage as Thorin.
There is a lot of comedy in this film and even though I enjoyed most of it there are a few VERY odd lines here and there. Also the whole breakout from the goblincave sequence is done in a very humorous and over the top fashion. I really enjoyed the fact that the movie didn't take itself too seriously. However, a major criticism from my part is that straight after the goblincave sequence there is a very intense and serious sequence where it seems like all hope is lost. I don't have an issue with either of these sequences themselves but I just wish that the pacing would have been different at this point. The escape from the goblincave sequence was a lot of fun but it also took quite a lot of momentum away from the movie. I feel like the scene at the cliff would have been even better if there was a littlebit of breathing time in between.
Overall, I feel like this is a great movie with some minor issues. That is why I will give it a solid 8,7 rounded up to 9.