The Hobbit: an Unexpected Journey

While not 100% accurate to the book, this was still a great movie. There were a couple concerns I had before seeing it, but they did a great job with it. One thing I was worried about is that the book has substantially more singing than the Lord of the Rings, so I was a little bit worried that the movie might overdo it. I generally don't like musicals very much, so I was very glad to see that that was not the case. My only other real worry was that the dwarves wouldn't be very cool, but now I realize how wrong I was. All the dwarves were tough and cool. Especially Thoren Oakenshield. The other person that I thought was especially cool was Gandalf. I've always loved Gandalf, but in the past, I would've liked to see him in more battles. We got to see that in The Hobbit. Especially when he, Bilbo, and the dwarves are fighting their way out of the goblins' underground lair. During that scene, we see Gandalf using magic to send goblins flying, cutting them down with his sword, bringing down boulders from above to squish them, and just being generally awesome. Also, since he's Gandalf the Grey, he shows more emotion and humanity than when he was Gandalf the White, which I thought was good. The actor who played Bilbo also did a great job. He really showed that Bilbo was just an ordinary hobbit, but he has courage and nobility and is becoming a hero. Compared to Lord of the Rings, there was also a good deal more humor in this movie, mostly from Bilbo and the dwarves. One of the only things that I didn't love about this movie is one scene involving storm giants. It's been a while since I've read any Tolkien, but I'm pretty sure those giants were just a Hollywood invention. Basically, the main characters were traversing a mountain range, but then the mountains stood up and revealed themselves to be colossal creatures made of rocks, then proceeded to start fighting. Huge rock elementals just don't feel like Tolkien. Don't misunderstand though; they were pretty cool and reminded me of the monsters from Shadow of the Colossus, or Titans from Castlevania that you have to climb up in order to defeat. They just felt too much like something that belongs in World of Warcraft or Elder Scrolls, or even Darksiders instead of the Hobbit. I know they're making a trilogy out of one book, but I was hoping they would add things that seemed to belong a little more in that universe. A common complaint is about Radagast the Brown, another wizard who's kind of crazy and obsessed with nature. People say he's the Jarjar Binks of the Tolkien universe, but that's not entirely true. I didn't think he was that great and was a little annoyed by the fact that he has bird poop on him all the time, I didn't mind him that much. I think those are the only two things complaints I have, but the movie makes up for them with awesome music. It uses a little bit of the same music from the Lord of the Rings, but with a new and awesome main theme. Final Verdict: This movie gets 4.7 oaken shields!