Movie Review: The Hobbit

A younger and more reluctant Hobbit, Bilbo Baggins, sets out on a "unexpected journey" to the Lonely Mountain with a spirited group of Dwarves to reclaim a their stolen mountain home from a dragon named Smaug. (IMDb)

Before the Review

OK, so before I say anything about the movie I wanted to take a moment to tell you about my love of The Hobbit. When I was in 7th grade I had the most amazing English teacher in the world. I WAS NOT a reader at that point in my life, but when we studied The Hobbit he made that book come alive to me. This man would read The Hobbit to us and do all the voices for the different characters. I got so into it I went out and used all my babysitting money on the collectors edition of The Hobbit.

I have now re-read The Hobbit many times. I have never forgotten that English class or the teacher that opened the world of fantasy books up to me. I still have the map that was handed out with the runic we all had to learn.

I thought about reading The Hobbit just before the movie, it’s been a few years since I’ve done so. But, I realy wanted to view it with new eyes that didn’t compare the movie to the book with every shot.

Review

I knew from The Lord of The Rings trilogy that The Hobbit would be a beautiful movie and it was.

Now before I get started on my next thought let me just say I don’t know anything about the movie making process nor am I a regular film critic. Having said that I did not understand why so many things were CGI. I could be wrong but I felt like in The Lord of The Rings trilogy things looked… Well, more real, this mainly came into play with the Orcs and the goblins.

The characters

I thought Martin Freeman was an excellent Bilbo, he totally got the character for me! I was rooting for him throughout the movie to make the right decisions. Gandalf, played by Ian McKellen, was of course amazing. I don’t think anyone will ever be that role in my mind again. He is the epic wizard and no one but McKellen could play that character so well. Now onto the biggest surprise for me… Thorin! Richard Armitage was an awesome Thorin. I got to see the care and want he had for his people and also what a badass Dwarf he is. Um I would not want to ever get into a fight with Thorin.  

The story

If you are a big fan of the book I think you will like the movie. I sort of sat in awe as I watched some of my favorite scenes play out before my eyes. The first half of the movie did move a bit slow, but as I am just a bit of a fangirl when it comes to The Hobbit I was OK with that. Of course you are left hanging a bit at the end but that is what happens when they turn one book into tree movies. Now, the scene I was most anticipating was where Bilbo meets Golem. Y’all I can remember when I was younger that Golem scared the 7th grade me and I wanted them to get that creep factor across in the Bilbo-meets-Golem-scene. I don’t think that they could have gotten this more right. No matter how you feel about this franchise the riddle scene between Golem and Bilbo was EPIC. I don’t think my imagination ever did it the justice that the movie did. If anything see The Hobbit for that scene.

I guess you realize by now that I enjoyed The Hobbit. I made my husband (who has never read the books) talk about the movie and the book for about an hour after it was over. I am very excited to see the next chapter of the movie.

Happy watching,