The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is as overblown as expected

Rating: 5/10 (24 December 2012)

"Peter Jackson's return to Middle Earth is not a welcome one because for a story that seems simple he has decided to stretch it out which creates a mix of good and bad results in a poor attempt to start a three film set"
Back in the early part of the millennium Peter Jackson decided to adapt the Lord of the Rings to very good results critically and financially. About ten years later he makes his return to Middle Earth with a prequel series to those once great movies. Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman) reflects on a journey he had when he was young, this journey involved Bilbo helping thirteen dwarfs fight to claim back their home land from a terrible dragon who took their land many years ago. Gandalf (Iam McKellen) also joins this group as they journey across the lands helping in anyway they can such as getting help from Elf's and also using his powers when the group are in trouble.
The Lord of the Rings films are a personal favourites of everyones because of the epic scale of it all, but the difference between those films and this film along with their upcoming sequels is that some of out favourite characters do not make as big appearances and we are introduced to all these new characters who are not as fleshed out with personalities as one might want. The film is made up of some of the stories from The Hobbit book but some extra scenes come from other works by Tolkien, this decision to add extra scenes did not work as well for me because they seem out of place and just make the story not move as fast as I would want it to be. Also the choice of Jackson to use 48FPS was a failure in my mind because like many people have said you feel sick while watching all the scenes especially how it shows the imperfections of the visual effects and makeup was very distracting while watching the show.
Martin Freeman plays Bilbo Baggins the lead and he was perfect for the role because he provides the light heartiness that the character needs especially when we see how he develops throughout his journey. His performance is not really much to talk about only because he usually disappears into the background when sharing scenes with all the other characters that are bigger and brighter. Ian McKellen who plays Gandalf again is fine but the same thing with Freeman his performance is just setting out for maybe something to come in the future film. Andy Serkis returns as Gollum and I was blown away by the whole scene because it was the best scene in the whole film. It may be the best I have ever seen Gollum because I felt such sympathy for the character and Serkis has just mastered his performance as this character so well. The scene between him and Freeman stood out in the film because of how darkly comedic it was compared to nearly everything else in the film. There are so many characters in the film which is a negative because not much of them are fleshed out enough to be real characters but I expect something to happen to them in later films.
The film was too long and dragged a lot of times, I felt that a lot of scenes could either become more short or some scenes cut out would have made for a better film overall. Nice visuals throughout but with the development in film making made me see all the imperfections in the film which I have never really seen because in other middle earth films the story was so compelling unlike the story told in this film.
MOVIE GRADE: C+ (MVP: Martin Freeman)