On My Shelf: The Hobbit - An Unexpected Journey (2012)

I really liked the Lord of the Rings films -- so, of course I saw this movie when it came out. And I supposedly watched it again with a couple friends after that. That would mean that, at this point in my life, I have watched this film exactly two times too many. I was looking forward to never seeing this movie ever again.

...And then, a friend of ours, for reasons best known to himself, gave us the extended editions of all three Hobbit movies. So, now, to my tremendous embarrassment, we own all three of the Hobbit movies on my shelf. And that means I have to review them...

Just on the off-chance that you've never seen Lord of the Rings and never read The Hobbit, here is the story of the book in a nutshell:
The Hobbit is a story about a little man named Bilbo Baggins who lives in a cozy hole in the ground. He loves to drink tea and sit by a warm fire and be comfortable. A wizard comes along with some dwarves and bamboozles him (via manners) into going on a rather uncomfortable adventure where his skill at walking quietly will help him steal a particular magic stone back from a dragon that invaded the dwarf cave. Lots of fun, whimsical adventures are had along the way. (If you you'd like this story in greater depth, here's Leonard Nimoy singing The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins...)
"The Hobbit" shouldn't be quite as stupid as this, but it shouldbe equally as whimsical.
The movie more or less follows the same general plot as the book... while doing its best to remove any fun or whimsy one might experience during said adventure. It's hard to know where to start with the things that are wrong with this movie.... because, basically, the only parts I don't have a problem with are the scenery that was borrowed from Lord of the Rings and the casting (because I don't think anybody really did a bad job with what they were given). 
Other than that, THIS MOVIE IS TERRIBLE. It's main problems? 
PACING AND TONE!!!!! (With some additional points subtracted for wholly unnecessary double-and-single entendre jokes).
Let's start at the very beginning... 
It begins with elderly Bilbo, at the beginning of the Lord of the Rings story, recounting his young life adventures -- except, we immediately have a problem, because Bilbo doesn't begin by recounting his adventures, he begins by recounting events he never saw -- namely, the ravaging of the dwarf kingdom by the dragon, Smaug, and the displacement of the dwarves. 
This moment is highly out-of-place, and, if anything, should have waited for a point later on -- where the leader of the dwarves, Thorin Oakensheild, starts singing a song about that exact occurrence. Would have made sense to have some flashbacks at that point, wouldn't it! But noooooo...) We then slip back in time to when Bilbo looked less like Ian Holm and more like Martin Freeman. 
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So, Bilbo is minding his own business, and Gandalf hassles him for a bit. All fine and dandy and close to the book... except for the pacing, which is as slow as molasses. Gandalf departs, Bilbo goes about his business -- then the dwarves arrive, more or less one-by-one, at Bilbo's place -- gradually raising his discomfort level. This section would have been fine, but, sadly, nobody told the editor that this scene was supposed to be amusing and quick-paced... so there are exceptionally long, quiet, awkward scenes of the dwarves slowly arriving and disturbing Bilbo by eating all his food. It's all upsettingly slowly paced, and the score isn't helping. 
This dreary scene is followed by an unexpectedly jouncy little song where the dwarves defy the laws of physics and sing about how they acknowledge that Bilbo doesn't like them messing around -- which seems really out of place given the slow, plodding, non-whimsical tone that has just been set. You could have edited this entire section of the film down to  just a couple minutes and had all you needed out of it -- just buzz through their arrivals, cut to them singing their song and upsetting him and telling Gandalf how he's upset by it all -- and it would have flowed so much better.
How I look while I'm watching this movie.Then they have the somber scene of Thorin singing the song about how they had to leave their mountain home and they were sad (which would have been a good place for the dragon flashbacks... providing Bilbo a reason to change his mind about going -- you know, because he's moved by the images of the dragon decimation that have flashed through his mind. AS IT IS, there are no flashbacks, and we don't see Bilbo affected by the song, and Bilbo wakes up the next morning and then just inexplicably has decided that he wants to go on the adventure with them. (Was he moved by their song? Did he kind of enjoy their company? It's really unclear. I mean, yesterday, he was like, "I just want to be left alone by you weirdos!" and now he's racing after them?)
It just gets worse from there. They stop for the night, and one of the dwarves recounts the story of some dwarf battle that happened after they were ejected from the mountain, when they establish why Thorin Oakensheild is such a cranky dillweed about everything (his grandpa died in that battle -- although it also appears everyone's grandpa also died in that battle, so his rights to be exclusively cranky on this account are limited). They also establish who the main villain is going to be for this series of films... [image error] ...This CGI jackass who was not in the book.What is the main purpose for this story at this point in the film? I guess to inject some excitement, since battle scenes are exciting, right? Well, they are if you care about the characters in them, but at this point I don't really care about Thorin Oakensheild because he's a crusty butthole -- and I'm not worried he's going to die in the battle because this is a flashback -- so, again, what is the point and purpose of this scene, here? JUST to establish the stupid, lame, CGI villain ("Azog, The Defiler, also known as The Pale Orc" according to The One Wiki to Rule Them All). 
[image error] Seen here: Practical effects Orc from The Lord of the Rings.
100% more believable to the inner recesses of your brain
and therefore 100% more enjoyable to watch.Around here, we also inject the further adventures of Radagast the Brown. For the uninitiated, Radagast the Brown is a wizard who is mentioned in a throwaway line in the book -- but is actually shown and given some stuff to do in this version of the story. Again, I have no problem with the casting -- as he was cutely and expertly performed by Sylvester McCoy, also known as Doctor Who #7 from the 1980's iteration of that show...
He was good, but Doctor Who was terribly preachy and dull at that time.
(But isn't he cute?)He kept the character at a tone that would have been correct... if the rest of this movie had been played at the level it was supposed to be played. As it was, against all the muted and dull scenes, Radagast seems cartoonish and weird, with a couple goofy jokes and eye-crossing thrown in. But mainly, the problems I have with Radagast in this film are that a) he was included in the first place, because his presence is literally just killing time, and b) that somebody thought it would be funny if he had bird poop all over the side of his head. (Spoiler: It's not.)
I wish I was kidding about this.And the further problem with bringing in new characters and characters who didn't really play a part in the original story is that (besides killing time) they all do one main thing: distract from our main character. You know, THE HOBBIT?! The one this whole saga is named after? 
Oh, yeah! THAT guy! What's his name again?I seriously don't know what Bilbo was doing during most of this movie. Looking at things and running, I suppose. Oh, he was whining about forgetting his handkerchief at one point.
Okay, so, next they arrive at Rivendell, home of the elves. It's essentially the same as in Lord of the Rings except that Bret MacKenzie is given a bit more to do this time.
Namely, he gets to stand around with this
expression on his face.The extended edition of the movie gives us a little more time at Rivendell, with the dwarves purposefully being rude to the elves and dancing on tables, and a scene where one of the sexy dwarves is commenting on the attractiveness of the elf ladies and realizes the one he was eyeing is a dude. I don't mind those scenes, because they are harmless and whimsical (which is what the tone of the story The Hobbit is SUPPOSED TO BE).

I will say, there was some unnecessary nudity.When we first watched this movie in the theater, one of the (many) complaints I had was that it was far too long (not unlike this review, since I had so much to gripe about). The whole story should have been no more than one film in its entirety. So I sincerely doubted that seeing it in an "extended edition" form would help matters. 
Oddly, though, I feel the extra scenes in the extended edition didn't hurt. There were like three extra scenes we spotted -- one, baby Bilbo hitting Gandalf in the butt with a wooden sword (I guess to demonstrate the "adventurous spirit" that Gandalf saw in Bilbo as a child?); two, a little more dialogue when the dwarves first come to visit Bilbo; three, some extra dialogue and singing once they reach Rivendell. In truth, the extra dialogue is pretty harmless... in fact, these scenes that were excised from the theatrical release felt more like the book "The Hobbit" than the rest of the movie did, because they were mostly cute, harmless dialogue that developed the individual characters.
Overall, then -- how did I feel about this movie on second viewing, and first viewing of the extended editions?

This film, due to length, was divided up into two discs. Disc One was HORRIBLE. It was just as bad as it was the first time I saw it, but now there was even more of it. I HATED IT. Disc Two was actually slightly less horrible... Almost watchable, which is quite an improvement on part one. Ultimately, then, should you put this on your shelf if you are anything except an uber-Tolkien fan?

NOT RECOMMENDED.