The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012)

Not very enjoyable.

The HFR was massively jarring at first (that sped-up feel is just as bad as TV motion interpolation), but about halfway through the movie, I started getting used to it. It's weird, because if you compare it to how things look IRL, it is closer to that, but at the time because you're used to 24fps it just feels bizarre. I think I'll need a few more movies in this format before I really get used to it and start enjoying it.

The 3D seemed fine, but it's hard to say if the HFR improved it because it was so underused.

I wonder whether the HFR contributed to this feeling, but the whole film felt rushed. The pacing had none of the variation of the LOTR films, it was just full-steam ahead all the way. It basically goes "peril! Escape! Run to next location! Peril! Escape!" There's never a chance to get a feeling for place or character, before someone dramatically appears to rescue everyone in the nick of time so they can keep running. Plus, a lot of the direction feels either very half-hearted and perfunctory or tends to obscure what is actually happening. I've never really felt this with Jackson's direction before.

A lot of the dramatic beats, character motivations, action sequences and locations feel all too similar to LOTR as well. I know this is a little unfair with the locations, but I was really hoping to discover new, completely different feeling areas of Middle-Earth in this film. Instead, it's The Shire, Rivendell, forests, underground caves, dwarven lairs and that's it.

The tone is rather portentous and heavy for what is essentially a picaresque caper. The film is bogged down with bookending narration, unnecessary backstory and set-ups for the next movies that serve no purpose in this one (White Council, spiders, Necromancer) that the thin storyline can't support.. I really wish they'd made it much more of a kid's film.

That said, there are some nice moments and scenes (the Gollum sequence is fantastic), and it often looks super-real and beautiful when Jackson takes a moment to soak up the surroundings. Freeman does a good young-Holm Bilbo, and the CG, when it's good is very good, some of it may age quite quickly and reminded me of I Am Legend, and some of it is proper ropey/cartoonish (which could be argued as intentional).
Rating: Bad