Peter Jackson, you've spoiled us rotten ... hopefully you can pull it off in this decade as well

Rating: 7/10 (15 December 2012)

>>>I saw The Hobbit in the 24 fps, no 3D involved. I did not read the book.<<<<
I give The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey an 8 because I've seen it all before; in a seemingly distant memory a long time ago, in a trilogy made by the very same person behind the camera, only that first viewing eleven years ago took my breath away and this time around I was left, somewhat disappointingly, unfazed.
It's still a masterpiece of film-making and Jackson gets so many things right, like leaving most -if not all- of the things that worked the first 3 movies basically untouched (all the familiar places look and feel exactly like before, the musical score is carefully changed but effectively reminds us of the LOTR trilogy at key moments, no character or performance is out of place, etc) and combines it with new material from this book with ease. Also, he didn't get pretentious, which was my main concern.
However, it dawned on me a couple of times, this thought of the movie feeling almost too comfortable in its shoes, and how easy it must have been for Jackson to build further on the world that he created in the last decade. This can hardly be understood as negative, and yet, it IS where my problem with this movie lies. In a nutshell, everything looked too familiar; be it the majestic scenery with the all 'expected' shots of our protagonists (again) running on mountain tops and through the open fields, or the battles where all the creatures were either seen in a past LOTR or Harry Potter movie. It all gave me a somewhat frustrating feeling of seen-it-all-before-in-LOTR, which started boring me, even when the action kicked in at the end. For the first time, watching a Peter Jackson interpretation of Tolkien left me emotionless.
The LOTR trilogy probably defined the word "EPIC" for my generation and in the mean time, we've grown accustomed to other movies catching up -or at least trying to- to the high standard that Peter Jackson bestowed upon us. I guess I wanted him to change just a bit more than he did, I wanted a more distinguishably different feeling of not watching a LOTR movie, but a Hobbit one.
I have no concerns for the other two Hobbitmovies, like before I think mr.Jackson has once again managed to save the best for last.