It felt like the prequels to the Star Wars trilogy, somehow coming off the rails of the original Episodes. Nevertheless, it fell far below my expectations and hopes. The Hobbit movie was visually stunning, occasionally awe-inspiring, and optically breathtaking. While I never joined the Society for Creative Anachronism, I did pen Pedo Mellon a Minno in Elvish script on my college dorm room door. I’ve been reading his books since 1968 and have read them all several times. To begin with, I believe Tolkien was one of the greatest authors of the 20th century (with 150 million copies sold, perhaps the greatest), and he is my favorite author. Why? I was annoyed by how much it diverged from Tolkien’s legendarium. Indeed, my view of this movie is strikingly different than my review of Jackson’s first movie of his LOTR Trilogy, written several years ago here. While I enjoyed Peter Jackson‘s previous LOTR movies, I fall into the latter camp. You won’t like it if: you’re a big fan of Tolkien’s original books and expect a certain level of faithfulness to his story, you think that he had a better idea about the backstory and the character motivations, you don’t care for gratuitous battle scenes, you can’t stay out too late. You’ll like it if: you enjoyed the Lord of the Rings (LOTR) movies, you want to return to Middle-earth, you like action movies, you’re keen on regularly scheduled battle scenes, you don’t care so much about fidelity to the original books by J.R.R. In talking to friends who have been to it, reactions to the movie seem to fall into two camps: some felt it moved along briskly and engagingly, while others thought it was slow, bloated, and clumsy. But even after seeing it twice, my feelings remain mixed. MOVIE REVIEW: THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEYĮven if I had been told The Hobbit was the worst movie ever made, I still would have gone to see it.
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