The Hobbit: An Unexpected Amount of Frames-per-second

Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy is unprecedented fantasy filmmaking.  We all thought he would leave Middle Earth behind (with Guillermo Del Toro originally slated to take his place), but he's back in the hobbit-hole to adapt the precursor to the 'rings' books, The Hobbit.  Jackson made headlines when he announced that he would be shooting the film using 48 frames-per-second; in a normal film, footage is shot using 24 frames-per-second, giving movies their "film" look.  In 48fps, things are more "life-like" and action is cleaner (without blurred motion), and Jackson promised that this was the future of filmmaking.  Well fuck that, because I thought it was way too jarring and distracted from the movie.  I hardly got used to it and I'd have rather gone to a regular screening.  But with that gripe out of the way, I think The Hobbit is as charming and adventurous as its source material, with some structural problems that keep it from being amazing.

Jackson's decision to split The Hobbit into three films (and the sheer fact that this is a prequel) makes An Unexpected Journey fall a little on the "light side."  As strange as it is, even though the plot moves at a glacial pace, the film is PACKED with shit (it's as if he released the "extended cut" to theaters).  Goblins, orcs, elves, big-ass wolves, you name it.  There's a lot of spectacle on display and everything looks great (and sounds great, with Howard Shore returning as composer).  But some of the plot feels inconsequential, and the dwarves feel more like those of Snow White than Lord of the Rings. Granted, the actual book was more geared towards children, but following up LotR, it doesn't have that same edge.  Also, the humor that works on the page rarely translates, and there were a lot of awkward lines.

I was definitely entertained by it, but The Hobbit had a strange tone to it and its great sequences (such as Bilbo's riddle game with Gollum) were more episodic and don't add up to a solid whole.  I do like that Bilbo actually did have a character arc within the film, but I think it doesn't stand well on its own.  There were quite a few elements added that were not in the book (not being a big Tolkien reader, they may be explained in his other works) that I felt added very little to the story.  It's fun if you ignore the problems, but personally I think Jackson overstayed his welcome in this franchise.

Rating: B