The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Review: Cosy but Overlong

Is The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey worth watching?

It depends how much you love Middle-earth. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey has real charm, a perfect Bilbo and one superb scene, but it stretches a brisk children’s adventure into nearly three hours. Peter Jackson’s return to Tolkien is warmer and funnier than his Lord of the Rings films, and New Zealand’s landscapes are as spectacular as ever. The problem is pace: long introductions, repetitive chases and additions designed to connect it to the earlier trilogy weigh the story down.

What is The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey about?

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey begins sixty years before The Fellowship of the Ring. Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman) is a comfortable, respectable hobbit who likes his armchair and his pantry. His quiet life is upended when the wizard Gandalf (Ian McKellen) and thirteen dwarves, led by the exiled Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitage), arrive at his door. They plan to reclaim their mountain home, and its treasure, from the dragon Smaug, and Gandalf has decided that Bilbo will be their burglar.

The film covers the opening stretch of the quest, as the company leaves the Shire and crosses dangerous country pursued by enemies. Andy Serkis, Cate Blanchett, James Nesbitt and Ken Stott are among the cast. Jackson directs this New Zealand and American production in English, and it runs 169 minutes as the first part of a trilogy adapted from a single Tolkien novel.

Freeman’s Bilbo is the right note

Freeman is the film’s greatest asset. His Bilbo is fussy, polite and easily flustered, but also curious and braver than he knows, and Freeman’s comic timing turns small reactions into the film’s best laughs. He gives the story an ordinary centre that makes the fantasy spectacle around him feel earned. McKellen slips back into Gandalf with ease, and Armitage makes Thorin a proud, brooding presence, though the other dwarves are hard to tell apart.

The film’s high point is a quiet one. Bilbo’s encounter with Gollum, a game of riddles played in the dark beneath the mountains, is tense, funny and a little sad, and Serkis’s performance, captured through ever more sophisticated motion-capture effects, is as vivid as in the earlier trilogy. It is the one sequence where the film matches the book’s sense of wonder.

Too much of a small book

The limitation is structural. Tolkien’s The Hobbit is a short, fleet novel, and expanding it into three films means this first instalment spends a long time on preparation. The opening dinner party at Bag End, with songs and dishwashing, is charming but leisurely, and the story takes a long while to leave home. Later, subplots involving threats and characters largely absent from the novel exist mainly to set up the events of The Lord of the Rings.

The action has also changed character. Jackson stages several set pieces as bouncy, video-game-style chases in which the company tumbles through improbable escapes without apparent danger. These scenes are inventive but weightless, and they make the journey feel less perilous than it should. The film’s high frame-rate presentation, which was controversial on release, now matters less than the storytelling choices.

Where the magic survives

For all its padding, An Unexpected Journey still delivers what Middle-earth fans come for. Howard Shore’s music, the Shire’s cosy detail, Rivendell’s elegance and the grand sweep of mountain landscapes all recreate the world with care. A prologue about the dwarves’ lost kingdom is impressive and sets up Thorin’s grief convincingly. There is enough atmosphere here to satisfy anyone happy simply to spend time in this world.

Who should watch The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey?

It suits confirmed Tolkien fans, families with older children who enjoy fantasy adventure, and anyone planning a full Middle-earth rewatch. It is less rewarding for viewers with limited patience for long running times. Set aside close to three hours. The violence is frequent but bloodless, mostly battles with orcs and goblins, and the tone is lighter than The Lord of the Rings.

Where to go next:

• The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, the richer, more urgent start to Jackson’s earlier trilogy.
• The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, the direct continuation, livelier and with a genuinely impressive dragon.

The verdict

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is a pleasant, handsome return to Middle-earth, carried by Martin Freeman and a memorable meeting with Gollum. It is also too long for its story, and its bloated action and prequel set-up keep it well below Jackson’s earlier trilogy.

Rating: 3/5