I loved the LoTR trilogy movies so when I saw someone watching (what I presumed was) the second Hobbit film on a flight recently, I couldn't help but peek every so often. The visuals and action looked interesting, so now that I'm back on the ground I thought I'd give The Hobbit a shot. Within the first 10 minutes, I actually thought I must have been spying on the *first* Hobbit film in flight because the whole Smaug intro gave me deja vu... two hours later however, I realised I was wrong; I'd have to wait for the sequel to see all of the interesting things I'd seen over my fellow passenger's shoulder.

The Hobbit looked fantastic, contained decent acting, and a fairly safe script but it really was just a prologue to the next film. Having only seen and not heard the middle 45-60 minutes of Desolation of Smaug, I can still see why this first film was necessary but... as a standalone film, it's fairly unfulfilling. Even as I'm typing this, I'm thinking I could have just skipped the movie and had someone tell me the back story over a pint in 10 minutes so I could just move on to the next one. Movie, that is - not pint.

I've never read the books, so maybe this movie isn't really targeted at me. I hope the Tolkien fans enjoyed it at least. And I hope Martin Freeman wins the "Best Martin Freeman being Martin Freeman Performance" award at some point in the future. I really do.

OK, so I've now seen the movie about half a dozen times... Twice the theatrical cut and 4 times the extended version.

Overall it's a pretty decent film, not quite up there with the LotR trilogy though... However I was prepared to give it some benefit of the doubt due to it being the first of a trilogy.

That said... there are some real issues with the movie that cannot be overlooked. Some ropey CGI, scenes that go on and on far too long. Loads and loads of stuff thrown in just for the sake of it and that doesn't add to the movie as a whole.

I did like the transition at the beginning of the movie, a kinda recap of the LotR movies a reminder to the audience with a nod and wink. It's kept light hearted enough to work rather well... But I did gripe at the fact that it shows (old) Bilbo just starting to write his adventures down, on the very same day of the party... when we all saw that he had just finished it on that same day in the LotR trilogy... A minor point, but one that grates with me all the same... sloppy writing.

The gathering of the dwarves is done well, and it was nice to see the songs in there... but the whole clearing up and throwing the plates and stuff about was really shockingly bad CGI... I mean it looked like something from 15-20yrs ago... You know how you re-watch a movie from 10 or more years ago, and can pick out the CGI so clearly like it's jumping out of the screen because technology has moved on so much that what you are now used to is so much better... that the old stuff looks horrible in comparison. That's just what the whole scene reminded me of.. Terrible to watch and it really ruins what should be a funny little moment.

I risk going through the entire movie at this rate... so let's drag this back into a shorter review.

There are moments when I really love the additions that fill out the back story to the characters, the use of things from the Silmarillion and the LotR appendices really do add to the overall story most of the time. Yet there are scenes in The Hobbit book that are merely mentioned in a couple of lines (such as the stone giants) that are stretched out into entire scenes that simply don't flow well at all (like the stone giants again).

Overall the movie lacks decent pacing, 40% of the CGI looks dodgy and it's really hard to sit through the entire movie, let alone the extended version.

But... all of that can be forgiven because when taken as a whole... The quality of the cast is fantastic, the acting is superb, the visuals (ropey CGI aside) are stunning, the backdrop of NZ is wonderful and the attention to detail is mind blowing. After sitting through about 9hrs of extras and hearing why things were done the way they were, how the created the sets, how the cast got along... It only enhances the viewers perception of the movie itself.

But... those damn giant eagles man... saving the day yet again and not flying them all the way there... That annoyed me in LotR and it annoys me now. :)

As a HUGE fan of Lord of The Rings I have some mixed feelings about this movie and this Trilogy in general.
The movie has its positive points (many of them), the best part of this Trilogy is without a doubt Martin Freeman, his acting is flawless and he owns the character of Bilbo, his comedic timing and his dramatic bits are all perfect and he made the (Riddles in The Dark) scene everything I wanted!
All the other actors are great (Gandalf is amazing of course), the soundtrack is beautiful, the visuals are beautiful and I wasn't surprised since this IS made by Peter Jackson and we all saw LOTR!
But as I said this movie also has many negatives, first of all the RUNTIME, 2hr and 49 minutes is just too long! everything is just slow and gets kind of repetitive, and they had to add way too many pointless filler just to make it long, Radagast is useless (some people call him Jar Jar Binks and I kind of agree), the Azog plotline is one of the things that I absolutely disliked throughout this entire Trilogy, CGI orcs and goblins were just not scary enough (I loved orcs in LOTR when it was all makeup and they actually looked scary and real).
I guess I could talk for hours about this movie, but these were the most important things that I just HAD to mention.

Pros:

* Landscape imagery
* Camera, FX and CGI (for the most part)
* Costumes and stage design, camera
* Martin Freeman and most other actors perform solidly
* The background information is perhaps interesting to some of the LoR fans out there.

Negative:

* Runtime (way too long)
* Music (that's a dumb Hollywood standard orchestra score full of bombast that tries to cover for the dull story
* The jokes (some scenes are obviously meant to be funny but they're just silly and childish)
* The story: it's really dull and repetitive. Just like LoR 1, 2 and 3 btw (of which I'm not particularly fond either). It's the same old same old. In a nutshell: motley crew travel the world and master several adventures in between. Characters are super one-dimensional.
* The end. There's no end. It just stops at a random point and you're supposed to watch the second part. There's not even a cliffhanger. It just tells you that they approach the mountain and that the dragon is still there (I'd have figured that out all by myself). Gosh, I get the appeal of a trilogy, but you can't just transform every story into a trilogy just because you like the concept (or the fact that you have discovered a money making machine).

Of course off the level of its 'The Lord of the Rings' predecessors, but I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed 'The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey'.

It has good lure to it, the plot is more than interesting, it features pleasant callbacks and - like LOTR - looks exquisite. As for the casting, I like 'em. Martin Freeman (Bilbo) is, like Elijah Wood, an actor I've always found hit-and-miss, but I really did enjoy Freeman's performance here - the humour is his usual schtick, though the rest of his showing is strong.

Ian McKellen (Gandalf) returns and is as much a joy to watch as before. None of the others, though all good, stand out massively, James Nesbitt (Bofur) does bring decent comedic stuff.

Hopefully the two sequels to this are just as fantastic!