Critics review 'An Unexpected Journey'

The review embargo seems to have finally broken. I figured it was worth having a new thread for this so I split out my last few posts from the Countdown to Release thread.

There's a small collection of reviews here:

http://blogs.indiewire.com/thompsononhollywood/hobbit-first-reactions#

Various Twitter reactions from that page:

"The Hobbit's biggest sin is being simply pretty good. Entertaining but rarely enthralling."

"First half is kind of a disaster. Pleasant, but shaggy and meandering. Second half is action-packed and saves the movie."

"Also, are there any female characters in the book? Because right now, THE HOBBIT makes THE AVENGERS look like THE WOMEN. #1939thankyou"

"HOBBIT is also way less emotional than LOTR. No real tear-filled moments. A lighter time all around."

"If the Hobbit didn't add Galadriel, there would have been NO speaking roles for women."

Reactions came in from both the New Zealand premiere, held on Wednesday, and a slew of Los Angeles screenings. Complaints from the premiere took the form of dizziness and even motion sickness from watching the controversial 48 fps, while L.A. critics found the film padded, overlong and shockingly lacking in women.

The complaints about padding and length have been circulating from a number of sources, so I'm not surprised, but the last part jumped out at me. How exactly is this shocking? The Hobbit is one of the top five best-selling novels of all time, not to mention that the LOTR movies also didn't have a lot of women in them; it shouldn't really be a surprise to anyone who is pop culture literate that The Hobbit is a bit of a sausage party.

I also have to wonder if these people made the same complaint about Lawrence of Arabia during it's re-release earlier this year. That film really didn't have any speaking roles for women, yet it's still one of the all-time greats.

I've been reading a bunch more reviews that have popped up this evening. /Film has one of the better-written ones so far (side-note: don't read TORn's reviews unless you want a metric tonne of fanboy wanking).

http://www.slashfilm.com/the-hobbit-an-unexpected-journey-hfr-3d-review-peter-jacksons-latest-is-rousing-yet-repetitive/

When The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is good, it’s really good. Throughout Peter Jackson‘s first film in the Hobbit trilogy, his camera sweeps through an epic battle, and Howard Shore’s score crescendos through the speakers as thirteen dwarves, one wizard and a hobbit fight for their lives. That’s what most audiences are paying to see, and the film provides that on a grand scale, again and again.

“Again and again” is also the film’s biggest issue. On a consistent basis, it’s almost as if Jackson forgets he has two more films to release and is forced to pump the brakes. Tangents pop out of nowhere, dialogue scenes are stretched into infinity, and a familiar structure of capture followed by rousing escape, is consistently repeated. Much of the film feels like it’s purposely attempting to stall the dwarves’ quest from progressing.

What we’re left with is a huge, beautiful piece of entertainment, the lows of which are slightly outweighed by its adrenaline pumping highs. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey works, but feels bloated, derived from the fact that it’s based on a child’s book, only stuffed and stretched beyond the bounds of J.R.R. Tolkien‘s original narrative. Still, its flaws and fun work hand in hand to provide a suitably rousing first act to the Hobbit trilogy.

...

Overall The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is a lot of fun. Fans of Jackson, Tolkien and the Lord of the Rings films will enjoy it. However, it’s long and uneven, which keeps it from reaching the heights of Jackson’s first three Middle-Earth films. It’s obvious why and how the director added what he did, but whether or not it’ll all work out is probably a question we can’t answer for two more years.

/Film rating: 7 out of 10

IGN's reviewer offers many of the same thoughts and also has some choice comments about the special effects.

http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/12/04/the-hobbit-an-unexpected-journey-review

Peter Jackson's fourth trip to Middle-earth can't quite recapture the greatness, emotional impact or charm of the LOTR films, but there's still much to enjoy about The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.

Unfortunately, Azog, like all the orcs and goblins seen in The Hobbit, is a CGI character. Remember how formidable and scary the Uruk-hai were in the LOTR movies? It's because they were played by real actors in makeup and wielding actual weaponry, monsters who had a presence that CGI just can't recreate. The phoniness of these CG-heavy creatures makes The Hobbit feel as inorganic to LOTR as the prequels were to the original Star Wars films.

There's actually a lot of less than jaw-dropping visual effects work here, whether it's Azog -- who looks like he walked out of a video game -- or the horde that chases Radagast the Brown (Sylvester McCoy) or the wargs. The Goblin King (Barry Humphries) and his minions are all CGI. At a certain point during battle scenes with these CGI characters it becomes evident that the main actors are swinging at nothing; you never get the sense anything's actually connecting and thus you're never fully invested in these battles or what happens to anyone in them. It's makes you think that if you went 20 minutes in any direction outside of The Shire you'd end up in Toon Town. Add in the brighter landscapes and The Hobbit often looks more like a Narnia film than an LOTR one.

I think a number of people had similar reactions to the clip that was played during Richard Armitage's recent TV appearance. This is especially discouraging to me because if there was something that the LOTR films always excelled in, it was visual effects.

Ain't It Cool News, which you may remember from their very excited and positive coverage from the set of The Hobbit, has posted a review as well. To be clear: it's not written by the guy who was on the set.

http://www.aintitcool.com/node/59869

As the film sprints through its chaotic prologue, narrative coherence takes a backseat to high-definition visual wizardry; it's a bewildering barrage of footage that looks either spectacular or gallingly fake. But then Jackson's virtual camera plunges deep into the fully-digitized Lonely Mountain to reveal the discovery of the Arkenstone, and suddenly the alleged game-changing promise of AVATAR has finally been realized. What's real and what isn't? I haven't a clue, but it looks amazing. This is the future of event filmmaking, and the possibilities for a director of Jackson's talents to explode it are seemingly endless.

But there are kinks to work out. Many, many kinks. So many that I wonder if Jackson wishes he could've delayed shooting AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY another year while they figured out how to eliminate the occasional and terribly distracting undercranked effect of actors zipping around like coked-up Mack Sennett characters. Also, while the clarity can be awe-inspriring, it has a tendency to make the sets look cheap, the armor chintzy, and the makeup barely worthy of an Asylum production. AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY in high-frame-rate 3D is a deep, vicious pendulum swing between transporting and flat-out unwatchable - and it's impossible to fully adjust to the format because you never know when it's suddenly going to look like a demo reel.

Would I feel differently had I viewed the film in standard 24fps 3D? Well, jarring tech hiccups aside, I'd still have to contend with the interminable first act, which left me feeling like I was watching the biggest artistic miscalculation from an elite filmmaker since SKIDOO. So probably no.

I don't know if it's a question of shaking off rust, but once Jackson plunges the party into the Misty Mountains, he roars back to life as a filmmaker. Crosscutting between Gandalf and the dwarves battling a never-ending legion of goblins (led by their grotesque, testicle-chinned king) and Bilbo matching wits with a pathetic little fella named Gollum (Andy Serkis and WETA remain the best show in town), Jackson finds a groove and stays in it for the duration. But this is also where you're reminded of the limited emotional resonance of THE HOBBIT. Aside from Bilbo sparing Gollum, there's not much here to spring the waterworks. This is all prelude to the big opera of THE LORD OF THE RINGS. It's a fine story, sure, but this is just the first act of a book that can easily be read in a couple of sittings.

And therein lies the potential problem with the next two movies. AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY runs a healthy 160-plus minutes, and more than half of it is filler. Worse, I know goddamn well there's not 320-minutes worth of story left. Not even close. If I felt like Jackson was attacking this book with the all-in bravado he brought to THE LORD OF THE RINGS (and setting up more than Tolkien's book delivers), I'd forgive the bloat. But the listlessness of AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY reminds me of the slow boat to Skull Island in KING KONG. We're adrift. So please, Mr. Jackson, wrap this up, and get the hell out of Middle Earth. This is beginning to feel more like cartography than storytelling.

I was dreading the King Kong comparisons. I could barely watch that movie.

http://www.theonering.net/torwp/2012/12/04/66570-staffer-garfemaio-reviews-the-hobbit-an-unexpected-journey/?fb_source=pubv1

It's worth noting that there are a number of positive reviews out there too:

http://www.screendaily.com/reviews/the-latest/the-hobbit-an-unexpected-journey/5049601.article

Director Peter Jackson’s return to the land of Orcs, Dwarves, Elves, Wizards and Hobbits turns out to be a happy homecoming. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey recaptures much of the epic spectacle of the filmmaker’s massively successful Lord Of The Rings trilogy, smoothly setting in motion another large-scale adventure that will be carried forward in two subsequent films over the next two years. Boasting an appreciably dark tone and a seemingly endless array of visual astonishments, this Hobbit suggests that, nine years removed from his last J.R.R. Tolkien adaptation, Jackson has lost none of his ability to deliver this sort of brawny mainstream entertainment, even if a bit of déjà vu hovers over the proceedings.

http://www.cinemablend.com/reviews/The-Hobbit-An-Unexpected-Journey-6201.html

When Jackson took on The Hobbit after Guillermo del Toro dropped it in 2010, it seemed like an obligation more than the passion that drove him to make the original trilogy. But for its occasional moments of excess and unhurried pace, An Unexpected Journey is proof that Jackson still has a knack for stories in this world, and that he may have more surprises in store as the rest of this new, unexpected trilogy unfolds.

Some comments on tone from Movieline:

http://movieline.com/2012/12/04/hobbit-3-d-early-review-lord-of-the-rings/

For example: Many will point to Radagast the Brown (Sylvester McCoy), with his jackrabbit sled and bird poop-bespotted hair, as an example of comic relief that goes too far. It doesn't, but the general dottiness of the character comes at a moment in the film of great peril, when it is revealed for the first time that the villainous Necromancer who is troubling the borders of Mirkwood might, in fact, be the villain — the evil Sauron.

Tolkien could avoid the confluence, but not Jackson, who in his fierce desire to make The Hobbit as tonally consistent with Lord of the Rings as possible mixes the two and finally pushes his finely-tuned and hard-earned cart over, unbalancing the film in this and other parts as he tries too hard to align it with his earlier work.

He does go on to praise the second half. That seems to be a recurring theme.

Also, The Hollywood Reporter's review caught my eye solely for how clueless the reviewer was when talking about the fandom.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movie/hobbit-an-unexpected-journey/review/397416

There has almost certainly never been an adaptation of a novel more studiously, scrupulously and strenuously faithful as Peter Jackson's film of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. Spending nearly three hours of screen time to visually represent every comma, period and semicolon in the first six chapters of the perennially popular 19-chapter book, Jackson and his colleagues have created a purist's delight, something the millions of die-hard fans of his Lord of the Rings trilogy will gorge upon. In pure movie terms, however, it's also a bit of a slog, with an inordinate amount of exposition and lack of strong forward movement. But based on its maker, source and gigantic promotional campaign, this first section to the long-awaited prequel to Rings will no doubt mine equivalent amounts of box-office gold, as will its follow-ups next year and the year after that.

Wow. You know, you hear about these sorts of comments and you think you're prepared to handle one when you see it. But ha, there it is. It caught me off guard.

Slow and tedious, and an adaptation with every comma and dot or what?????? Could this be a tale that builds slowly????? Eru knock me down --- I hope so!!!!!!!!!

Im not surprised by the above statement. You always get the "do gooders" coming out the woodwork at some point. They, of all people, are the most blinkered. I dont usually take what they say to heart, Most people are more savvy & realise these zealots are "a sandwich short of a picnic". In fact I end up laughing at them. Ive been reading as many reviews as poss,but Im still sitting on my little white picket fence till I go in, with note book & pen, to see the film. Im not blinded tho, THIS IS NOT THE BOOK HOBBIT. Its PJs film "trip". His pinnacle, & I'l be at the bottom waiting for the fall. Ha Ha !

'narrative coherence takes a backseat to high-definition visual wizardry'

I am saddened but not suprised about this. Probably the most disappointing thing is PJ seems to have met my expectations- padded, stretched dialogue and needless subplots, over long actions sequences that look like video games and no sense of reality or danger for characters more suited to being in a cartoon.

This sounds like everything I thought was worst about the lotR's films, times a milion.

And I think I should pay the Hollywood Reporter a visit and give them a very long talk about what a purist is and why PJ doesnt come close to pleasing one!

ps found this comment and if true- its an absolute disgrace- bad enough to make a mess of Tolkiens writing, but to steal his work and pass it off as your own, thats low-

'If, like me, you were wondering how the haunting theme song can be submitted for Best Original Song, it’s actually pretty clever. The dwarfs sing Tolkien’s original lyrics, but then, over the end credits, it’s the same tune with slightly different lyrics, and that’s what’s being submitted for the Oscar. Tricksy.'- the Nerdist

http://badassdigest.com/2012/12/04/movie-review-the-hobbit-an-unexpected-journey-is-perfectly-okay/

'it’s also oddly paced and way too long; it takes the film almost 45 minutes to get going, and once it does it keeps stopping for scenes that feel like blueprints for theme park rides and video games.
The Hobbit is filled with too much CGI, and there is plenty of rude bodily noise and fluid comedy.
The big problem isn’t the expanded canon, it’s the expanded action scenes. Peter Jackson insists on bloating every sequence out to the point of overload. The dwarf escape from the Goblin caves is especially overstuffed; it isn’t helped by feeling like a retread of Fellowship of the Rings’ Moria sequence mixed with a crummy platformer. There’s no sequence in the movie that Jackson can’t stretch out just slightly too long.
one of the extra storylines jammed into the film finds Radagast the Brown...investigating a mysterious presence at an ancient abandoned fortress. The savvy among us know this is the first inkling of Sauron’s return to Middle-Earth; the characters know only that it’s a Necromancer, raising the dead.
If only they had debated what to do about the overuse of CGI in the film. Some of the effects in The Hobbit are so bad they actually made me wonder if this was an aesthetic choice; a chase sequence between Radagast and a platoon of orcs looks about as convincing as that dancing baby on Allie McBeal.
For some reason Azog is also a CG character. And he looks it. It’s good CG work, but he’s always, obviously CG. It sticks out like a sore thumb in a series where orcs have been, traditionally, guys in costume and make-up. That drenched-in-CG feeling permeates the overlong Goblin sequence; every Goblin is CG, as is every environment.
The movie turns Bilbo into something of an action hero, but that’s the nature of the modern world.
The problem is that the best moments of the movie aren’t as good as you’d hope for them to be - especially when weighed against the shocking bloat throughout.'

Action hero!

The NZ Herald gave it a very good review, 4.5 out of 5- but still to my eye full of worrying things.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/front-page-top-stories/news/article.cfm?c_id=698&objectid=10851910

'It's not just the little folk delivering some memorable gags - a trolls' campfire scene almost becomes its own Middle-earth chef show; scenes featuring Sylvester McCoy's woodland wizard Radagast and a dying hedgehog are truly nutty; so too is Barry Humphries as the Great Goblin, a grotesque creature who manages to be uglier than Jabba the Hutt by virtue of having what appears to be a giant testicle for a chin.'

Another overall positive review that still kind some faults-

http://tvnz.co.nz/hobbit-news/unexpected-journey-movie-review-5257319

'While the Goblin Kingdom looks impressive, some of the shots when Gandalf and the gang ride a walkway down to try and escape don't quite fit together as well as they could, lacking the cohesive FX touches.
Sylvester McCoy's almost vaudevillian turn as Radagast the Brown.

And likewise, when the first reveal of Rivendell comes, it looks a little too much like a painting in the background, with action superimposed on the front.

so mixed signals on the 48 frames..
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-ryan/the-hobbit-an-unexpected-journey-48-fps_b_2233959.html?utm_hp_ref=fb&src=sp&comm_ref=false

Q: Sped-up?

A: Have you ever watched old footage of Babe Ruth running the bases back in 1927? Well, imagine that, only with the clearest picture that you've ever seen. After my screening, I talked to other writers who had noticed the same thing. My understanding is that it took our brains a few minutes to adjust to the new format, and this was the resulting sensation. It's really quite a trip -- because it's not like the voices are sped up. And the voices certainly sync with the video, but, still, everything looks fast. Then, after a few minutes, the speed returned to normal.

Q: So everything in the film looks beautiful at 48 FPS? This sounds like a good thing.

A: Well, not so fast. Quite a few things don't look great in 48 FPS. Most of the scenes that take place outdoors look fantastic, but indoors it was difficult to stop being conscious of the fact that we were staring at a movie set. And the scenes that were heavy on CGI yielded mixed results.

Q: Speaking of CGI, how does Gollum look in 48 FPS?

A: Absolutely outstanding. The close-ups of Gollum's face were stunning. But, unfortunately, a scene featuring Radagast the Brown, on a sled powered by rabbits fleeing an approaching Orc army, looks quite terrible. The screen is so clear, it rendered the CGI in the scene (which was shot from a distance) into something that looked a lot like a game of Duck Hunt.

Q: How was it distracting?

A: Granted, this could be related to my own attention-deficit issues, but I was often taken out of the story because I just wanted to look at things. There's a scene that takes place in Rivendell in which Gandalf (McKellen) and Galadriel (Cate Blanchett) are having an important conversation near a waterfall -- but all I could do was stare at the waterfall. It was so pretty. I mean, I could see each and every droplet of water coming out of this waterfall. All I wanted in the world was to drink from this waterfall. Of course, with all of my attention drawn to this waterfall, I missed most of what Gandalf and Galadriel were talking about

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-ryan/the-hobbit-an-unexpected-journey-48-fps_b_2233959.html?utm_hp_ref=fb&src=sp&comm_ref=false

From the ninnyhammer at the Hollywood Reporter who said it was a purist's delight:

In doing so, he is able to provide a titanic opening battle sequence, one in which a wealthy ancient kingdom of
dwarves alongside the Lonely Mountain is decimated by fearsome giant trolls.

Eh? Dwarf kingdom NEXT to the Lonely Mountain? Decimated by fearsome trolls?? Hope this is just the reviewer being plain daft and getting confused between the Lonely Mountain and Moria... OR I WILL BE AS CRABBIT AS PETTY!!!

I looked up the Hollywood Reporter story just so I could see who their delusional reporter was. I hope he at least wakes up and gets some red-faced moment over his purist remarks.

Ayup All...

Well, we the fans told PJ that his Fecking about would be a disaster, but he never listened. He didnt even listen when he got Bummed at Comic-Conned by the Movie press, over 48FPS, but turned to his Brain-Dead Comic-Conned 'Fans' for succour. They will indeed make him his money, but I'll bet many a (Book) Fan tossed into the ditch along the way, will have their well-earned 'Told you so' moment. I'm enjoying mine on this cold Winters Day... The Question is now, will he heed his reviews, or carry on regardless ? I think we can Guess. Its obvious that all this spurious 'Extra' stuff, made rightly or wrongly, should have been kept for something like the EE Blu ray/DVD release, or simply not bothered with, as it was Bollocks to start with, and Unnecessary. Can't wait for Tauriels appearance, and Six Flags, of course ! Or Maybe Sylester Mcoy can redeem him with a great performance, with some SCARY Spiders !

Ayup All...

PS. the reviews remind me of the slating 'Enterprise' got over the Original Star Trek series, cver the use of CG etc...

PJ wont,(&) would'nt listen to ANYBODY, except maybe with the "witches of Eastwick", (Walsh & Boyens) Hes had so many "pats on the back" & accolades since LOTRs,that not only his chest is puffed up,but also his brain, AND his over inflated ego. I still cant get over WHY he had to hack The Hobbit, like a butcher with a mental health problem ?! If you enjoyed the book,& wanna make a film of it,why chuffing change anything !?! Theres a saying, "Oh how the mighty have fallen"...be prepared PJ, is all I can advise, you WILL get back lash. And not just for a little while, New Zealands famous "son"? tough position to keep up,& for how long? I wonder,on his school report,as a child, did it ever say "could do better"?! Might get that statement now, as an adult.

I guess it's worth noting that the reviews are hardly bad, but Tolkien fans as a fandom have never really had to deal with anything less than glowing reviews before. Sure, there were some critics who didn't care for LOTR, but it wasn't until CinemaCon earlier this year that there was a mixed or negative consensus about something Middle-earth related that PJ had done. The developing Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic scores are a sign of this, though both will change as more reviews come in over the next two weeks.

Rotten Tomatoes scores:

Fellowship of the Ring: 92%
The Two Towers: 96%
Return of the King: 94%
An Unexpected Journey: 71% (so far)

Metacritic scores:

Fellowship of the Ring: 92
The Two Towers: 88
Return of the King: 94
An Unexpected Journey: 62 (so far)

It's kind of hard not to be disappointed by that. :/ I do think that the scores will go up slightly now that the initial rush of reviews is in, but it seems very unlikely now that An Unexpected Journey will be as well-received as any of the LOTR movies. Of course, that doesn't mean that any individual moviegoer will or won't enjoy it, but I find it interesting to note since a lot of LOTR fans took pride in those movies' near-universal acclaim.

He didn't explicitly try to change LoTR from the epic adventure tale that it is.

He DID explicitly try to change a charming children's book into an epic adventure tale. Ignoring the quality of the original book was his first and biggest mistake, and he should have been expecting backlash from the beginning.

Well, we purists have been telling PJ that for years! Maybe The Hobbit will be the purists' vindication. {{{I sort of hope not.}}}

Interestingly, I notice that most if not all of the New Zealand reviews I've seen have been 4 or 4.5 stars out of 5, despite raising many of the same issues as reviews from other countries. Might be a bit of home-town bias.

Can't say I'm surprised about the complaints about the padding and pacing issues.
I went on about that back in Bree more than I should have.