The Hobbit - film review

If you haven’t seen the film, I wouldn't read much further than this sentence!

  

                         

I haven't read The Hobbit, so my opinions are going to differ from those who’ve read the book.I went to see it in the traditional format.  A friend of mine went to see it in the new 3D 48 frames format, and wasn't very impressed with it. 

Overall, the film was good & most gripes I had were about certain design decisions.

I found myself smiling through about 60% of it, just because of how charming it was. Bag End is featured more in this film, and I got to look around inside and around corners that I didn't in Fellowshipof the Ring, and as a result, those scenes we highly enjoyable. Martin Freeman was perfect in the role, and I couldn't fault him.

Radagast was great as well, drawing some laughs from myself and the audience. Again, charming design.

As always, film studios like to push down the film rating so more (and younger audiences) can lines their wallet. This is really a children / family film, but there were some scenes in it which were so pointlessly graphically violent,  I sat there thinking 'Yep, that was definitely included to draw in a more 'adult' audience'.

If those scenes are in the book, then fine, but if they're new, one has so ask the question 'Why were they included'? To make a film appeal to adult audiences, you don't have to add gore or graphic violence.....and to do so is quite patronising and cheapens it. The Lord of the Rings films were a bit like this, but this time it was even more so.

One thing I did notice with the Hobbit was the design aspect – in places it's weaker. There was a dwarf or two at the beginning which had really fake-looking beards and it was like they hadn’t been taken care of by the make-up team like the rest.

I wasn't incredibly keen on the Elvish design either. I wasn't surprised to learn that this film had a different costume designer from LOTR.  I think they used more CGI in this film, and what were the glittery tiaras all about?

In the LOTR films, the metal-work (everything from broaches to head-pieces) was flawless. I assume they used silver and touched it up afterwards with CGI to give the silver a slight ethereal glow. The glittery material they used in this one just looked a bit like plastic, and deviated from Peter's Jackson deigns philosophy of not being like bombastic 80's fantasy films. Also, this wasn't helped by the fact that the film featured many sunrises and sunsets. Obviously it adds mood to the scene, but too many beautiful sun rises and sunsets can make the film a bit Disney-like.

I think the LOTR film design influenced the games design world (to the point where some were ripping the films).

In The Hobbit, this was reversed - I felt like they had taken inspiration from the games design world. There was something about it that.....well...looked a bit lazy.....like they'd lifted it from the Darkfall games. I just felt the great level of detail wasn't there with this film.

I really enjoyed the film, despite the issues I had with some aspects, and would recommend it. I would say that I even enjoyed it more than the LOTR films when I first saw them in the cinema.



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