El hobbit: Un viaje inesperado. Primeras críticas.

      EN ESTE POST NO HAY SPOILERS!

Todavía no está aquí pero ya empiezan a llegarnos del otro lado del mundo las primeras reviews de la primera de las tres películas que Peter Jackson ha dirigido para llevar al cine el cuento infantil de Tolkien. Los primeros pases de la película se hicieron en, creo, Nueva Zelanda, hace unos días, pero es hoy cuando llegan las primeras impresiones de los críticos. Por lo visto hubo un lío bastante grande con IMDB. Se rumorea que la productora pagó a gente para que votaran rápidamente por la película(un 10 claro) Así que en pocas horas, más de 4.000 votos de 10. Puede parecer un poco estúpido, pero yo creo que si se alimenta la idea de que la película es la hostia, la gente dirá que es la hostia(Batman Caballero Oscuro).

La primera review que leí y que tal vez, no sé porqué es la que más fiable me parece habla de una película un tanto previsible, bastante repetitiva pero muy divertida y en la línea de las del señor. Buenas interpretaciones, muy buenos efectos, batallas..... el líder de los enanos, Thorin, haciendo un poco el papel de Aragorn , bueno, creo que es la crítica que responde más a mis expectativas. 

Pero hay otras críticas que bien merecen la pena ser leídas en su idioma original. No quiero resumirlas, pero sin duda hay una cosa que he leído más de 1 vez y que me da mucho, mucho,mucho miedo: Las carreras recuerdan al programa de Benny Hill . No hace falta leerlas todas, algunas son mejores que otras, pero en general parece que la gente se va con mal sabor de boca. A mi me da que es la maldición de las precuelas. Mucha expectativa y distorsión de la realidad: tal vez ni aquello era tan bueno ni esto sea tan malo.(salvo en Prometheus. Prometheus es muy,muy,muy,muy mala-la he vuelto a ver y es insufrible)

boxoffice.com 

What the 48 frame-per-second projection actually means is flat lighting, a plastic-y look, and, worst of all, a strange sped-up effect that makes perfectly normal actions—say, Martin Freeman's Bilbo Baggins placing a napkin on his lap—look like meth-head hallucinations. Jackson seems enamored of 48 fps, but I can't imagine why. To me, it turned the film into a 166-minute long projectionist's error. I wanted to ask the projectionist to double-check the equipment, but really, I should just ask Jackson why he wanted his $270 million blockbuster to look like a TV movie.

That's not the only challenge faced by The Hobbit, Jackson's adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's 1937 novel of fantasy and adventure. It's the problem of prequels. Like what George Lucas bore when he returned to Star Wars for The Phantom Menace, the audience, the expectations and filmmaking itself have matured but the storytelling is more juvenile.

And where the Rings trilogy had weight, The Hobbit is all wigs and slapstick and head-lopping violence unsuitable for children—who are the only audience who won't be bored to tears.

screencrush.com 

- When people run, they look like they are on the ‘Benny Hill Show.’

- Fire looks weird. This doesn’t matter too much when it is just a burning hearth, but when it is dragonbreath or hurled, flaming weapons, it is a problem. As a result, a moment that should read as triumph ultimately comes across as goofy. It looks so strange and unusual (as do many of the special effects) that it looks somewhat. . .cheap.

- Anything shot in daylight looks like a BBC production from the 1970s. The movement is too smooth. And yet, when the camera movies, too, it looks somewhat jerky.

People interested in tech should see ‘An Unexpected Journey’ in 48fps (which is being marketing as HFR 3D). People just looking to see a great movie should just see it in 24. Of course, anyone looking for a great movie will be disappointed. ‘The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey,’ despite its many gimmicks, is just an okay movie.

hitfix.com 

Throughout the entire film, there was a strange Benny Hill quality to sequences, with things that appeared to be sped up. It happened in both dialogue and action sequences, and the overall effect was like watching the most beautifully mastered Blu-ray ever played at 1.5x speed. It doesn't make any sense to me that this process, which is supposedly all about clarity and resolution, would create that hyper-speedy quality unless they were doing something wrong in the projection of it. Peter Jackson would see this immediately. The voices are off-pitch, and the pacing of scenes goes to hell when it's played this way.

There are several returning artists on the film, like Ian McKellen and Howard Shore and Andrew Lesnie, whose work is every bit as good as it was before, and I think for the most part, "Lord Of The Rings" fans are going to feel like this is a welcome return to MIddle Earth. But there are enough uneven qualities this time around that i find myself astonished by the letter grade (B) I'm assigning the film. My hope is that the three films taken together will work better than this one does on its own, and that the pacing issues are not going to be ongoing as the series continues. 

slashfilm.com 

“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.

Overall The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is a lot of fun. Fans of Jackson, Tolkien and the Lord of the Rings films will enjoy it. However, it’s long and uneven, which keeps it from reaching the heights of Jackson’s first three Middle-Earth films.

ign.com 

As for the movie's "real" characters, this is Freeman, McKellen, and Armitage's show and they don't disappoint. Freeman is wonderful as Bilbo, even if he can't quite single-handedly out-charm the original trilogy's Fab Four of hobbits. Still, Freeman brings a warmth, wit, and, well, a humanity to the whole affair. McKellen is as regal and coy as ever as Gandalf, while Armitage adeptly captures the bitterness and drive of the rather cold fish that is Thorin, portrayed here as much younger than he's traditionally been depicted.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey almost attains greatness yet despite so many moments of epic fun, greatness remains just out of its reach. This is a very good and entertaining movie even if it never quite recaptures the wonder or mystique of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Flaws and all, though, it was just nice to be back in Middle-earth again.

indiewire.com 

At almost three hours, Peter Jackson’s fourth foray into the world of J.R.R. Tolkien, “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey,” is initially worrisome and typically self-indulgent. An extremely jarring 48 fps look -- which looks like an odd "Masterpiece Theater" in HD -- is unsettling and the opening is slow-going and tepidly genteel, taking its time with two prologues, one that includes an aged Bilbo Baggins (Ian Holmes) and Frodo Baggins (Elijah Wood). And while “The Lord Of The Rings” films always sported a jovial and light-hearted tone, 'The Hobbit' (set some 60 years before the events of ‘LOTR’) ratchets up the goofiness to a near unfortunate level (yes, the source material is more of a kids' book, but even this is a little much).

While it will be too formulaic and familiar to some (and certainly non-fans won’t be won over), 'The Hobbit' is another grand achievement from director Peter Jackson. While this distended picture threatens to buckle under the weight of its own self-importantance, Peter Jackson clearly believes he’s earned the right to preamble and make nearly three hour long tent poles each time out of the gate. And the last two acts of 'The Hobbit' are simply a non-stop action-adventure rollercoaster that is just as engaging and winning as anything in the director’s previous trilogy.

hollywoodreporter.com 

Spending nearly three hours of screen time to visually represent every comma, period and semicolon in the first six chapters of the perennially popular 19-chapter book, Jackson and his colleagues have created a purist's delight, something the millions of die-hard fans of his Lord of the Rings trilogy will gorge upon. In pure movie terms, however, it's also a bit of a slog, with an inordinate amount of exposition and lack of strong forward movement.

It takes Jackson a long time to build up a head of steam, but he delivers the goods in this final stretch, which is paralleled by the hitherto ineffectual Bilbo beginning to come into his own as a character. One of Tolkien's shrewdest strategies in writing The Hobbit and designing it to appeal to both youngsters and adults over the decades was making Bilbo a childlike grown-up who matures and assumes responsibilities he initially perceives are beyond him. Freeman, who at first seems bland in the role, similarly grows into the part, giving hope that the character will continue to blossom in the two forthcoming installments.

collider.com 

The greatest achievement of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, is how well it ties in with the Lord of the Rings trilogy, much better than, say, the original Star Wars films and their prequels, which are widely-considered to be inferior. As we recently discussed in our Star Wars podcast, watching the films in episode order is not only visually jarring, it ruins the dramatic tension of the whole arc. At first blush, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey appears to avoid this pitfall. The film is set up in such a way that new viewers are briefly introduced to Bilbo and Frodo, but regard them only as an old storyteller and his nephew, nothing more.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey has set a high bar for the next two installments, but if the Lord of the Rings trilogy is any indication, I fully believe that bar will be surpassed. Moving forward, I’d like to see the films become a bit more serious, especially since Bilbo is now in possession of a certain ring and all the grave consequences that portends. It would also be a more gradual transition into the Lord of the Rings trilogy and would allow new fans to mature along with the entire six-film arc, much like the Harry Potter films so expertly achieved.