When The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is good, it’s really good. Throughout Peter Jackson‘s first film in the Hobbit trilogy, his camera sweeps through an epic battle, and Howard Shore’s score crescendos through the speakers as thirteen dwarves, one wizard and a hobbit fight for their lives. That’s what most audiences are paying to see, and the film provides that on a grand scale, again and again.
“Again and again” is also the film’s biggest issue. On a consistent basis, it’s almost as if Jackson forgets he has two more films to release and is forced to pump the brakes. Tangents pop out of nowhere, dialogue scenes are stretched into infinity, and a familiar structure of capture followed by rousing escape, is consistently repeated. Much of the film feels like it’s purposely attempting to stall the dwarves’ quest from progressing.
What we’re left with is a huge, beautiful piece of entertainment, the lows of which are slightly outweighed by its adrenaline pumping highs. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey works, but feels bloated, derived from the fact that it’s based on a child’s book, only stuffed and stretched beyond the bounds of J.R.R. Tolkien‘s original narrative. Still, its flaws and fun work hand in hand to provide a suitably rousing first act to the Hobbit trilogy. Read More »
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Posted on Tuesday, October 23rd, 2012 by Angie Han
A full-length trailer gets somewhere between two and two and a half minutes to make its case, but a typical TV spot only runs about thirty seconds. Best to just to cut to the chase, then.
The new TV ad for Peter Jackson‘s The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey barely gets to establish who Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman) is or why Gandalf (Ian McKellen) is encouraging him to venture out into the wide world before the poor fellow is thrown into the midst of an action-packed fantasy adventure. Naturally, the promo still finds time to play up the film’s connection to the Lord of the Rings trilogy along the way. Watch it after the jump.
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In Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg‘s upcoming film The World’s End, five friends attempt to relive a bar crawl they did 20 years prior. We know that Pegg and Nick Frost will be two of the friends, completing the Cornetto Trilogy with Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, and recently Paddy Considine was revealed as the third. Wright has been shooting for a few weeks now, yet the identities of the final two friends remained a mystery. Empire Online is now reporting the group of friends will be completed by Martin Freeman (The Office, Sherlock, The Hobbit) and Eddie Marsan (Sherlock Holmes, V for Vendetta) making an already awesome sounding film exponentially better. Read more after the jump.
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Over the weekend, Peter Jackson posted the first official teaser poster for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman) is front and center, Sting in hand, and though the poster is brand new, it feels oddly familiar. Maybe that’s because it’s the exact same pose and framing as some of the Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy teaser posters. Check out the new image, as well as the old ones, after the jump. Read More »
You might see the headline for this second, slightly different trailer for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, and think that Peter Jackson & Co. have already reworked the ad campaign to represent their adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien‘s novel as a trilogy rather than two films.
That’s not what this trailer is, however. It’s a little early to push the trilogy. This one follows more or less the same trajectory as the debut trailer, with a reintroduction to Bilbo Baggins (Ian Holm, briefly, and Martin Freeman, primarily), Gandalf (Ian McKellen), and the world of Middle-Earth. But there is some new footage this time, just a bit, with a few shots cut into what we’ve already seen. Read More »
A batch of new images from The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey have hit today, but Warner Bros., MGM, and Entertainment Weekly have hit upon an unusual and (in this case) appropriate way to present them all at once. The images are stitched together to form one giant image “scroll” that shows several recognizable scenes from the first half of J.R.R. Tolkien‘s novel.
That piece above is just part of the image, and those who know the novel will instantly recognize a couple of the scenes depicted. Nearly everyone will recognize the moment on the left, in which Bilbo (Martin Freeman) uses the sword Sting to light his way through an underground cavern inhabited by Gollum (Andy Serkis). The other images below show Wargs howling around goblin-lit fires meant to flush Bilbo and his company from trees on the far side of the Misty Mountains, and the first look at Gandalf (Ian McKellen) speaking with the man-bear Beorn (Mikael Persbrandt).
One version of the full image is below. Read More »
Next week we’ll likely see some new footage from Peter Jackson‘s The Hobbit: An Unexpected journey, but for now let’s have a gander at ten new photos from the film. Pete mentioned EW’s cover story on the film in passing earlier today, but the site also has a whole batch of images that some of you won’t want to miss.
That’s Martin Freeman in warrior pose as Bilbo, above, and after the break you’ll get a look at Gollum, as well as at Cate Blanchett as Galadriel, Hugo Weaving as Elrond, and a bunch of dwarves stuffed into barrels for a river escape. Since Comic Con could ignite the whole “does shooting/projecting at 48fps suck or does it not?” conversation, for now let’s just check out the revival of Jackson’s vision of Middle-Earth. Read More »
If you’d like to see Ben Affleck with a stunning Seventies beard, Chris Hemsworth and Martin Freeman each surrounded by a bunch of dwarves or the first image from Ben Wheatley‘s follow-up to Kill List, this post is for you. After the jump, see new images from Ben Affleck’s Argo, Rupert Sanders‘ Snow White and the Huntsman, Peter Jackson‘s The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and Ben Wheatley’s Sightseers. Read More »
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