A great journey into Middle Earth once again

Rating: 8/10 (17 December 2012)

This movie has already gotten an extreme amount of negativity towards it and many complaining about this new 48 FPS. Well, guess what? I saw it in 24 FPS with no 3D and it was so, so worth it. Anyways, I'm done with the technical stuff let's get onto the actual review of the film itself. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey takes place 60 years before the fantastic Lord of the Rings Trilogy although we do have an opening scene that nicely connect this trilogy to the previous one involving an older Bilbo and Frodo that takes place just a little bit before Lord of the Rings starts. Right off the bat, I loved that they seamlessly connected the two trilogies.
The movie then spends the next 30 minutes or so to get Bilbo to be convinced to go on a journey with the dwarfs and Gandalf. Although, this part is a bit slow, I feel like it was a great introduction to the dwarfs and seeing Gandalf again in a film was great. Eventually, Bilbo decides to go on the journey and many things ensue with some great set pieces, action sequences, etc. It's great. Everyone in the cast gives very strong performances especially Martin Freeman and Ian Mckellen. Besides that, the cinematography is just as beautiful as it was in the Lord of the Rings trilogy as well as the music.
My only real complaint of the movie is the pace can be a bit slow. In the Lord of the Rings, those 3 hours for each movies feel like nothing but during this film, I felt like it was a bit too slow. Personally, I think at least 15-20 minutes could have been chopped off in editing and resulted in a better film. They could have just used the 15-20 minutes they cut and added it to the extended edition which we know is inevitable. Otherwise, this was a fantastic journey into Middle Earth once again and I'm eagerly anticipating the next two films.