The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Warner Bros. Pictures | Release Date: December 14, 2012 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
58
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 40 Critic Reviews
Positive:
20
Mixed:
18
Negative:
2
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Total FilmMatthew LeylandDec 5, 2012
Charming, spectacular, technically audacious… in short, everything you expect from a Peter Jackson movie. A feeling of familiarity does take hold in places, but this is an epically entertaining first course. Read full review
83
Entertainment WeeklyLisa SchwarzbaumDec 9, 2012
I'm holding the filmmaker responsible for getting us all back again - to feelings of excitement and delight. Vital as they are, Gollum and Bilbo can only do so much to keep us enchanted. Is Jackson able to sustain the magic in two more installments? I peer into Tolkien's Misty Mountains and embrace the journey. Read full review
83
The PlaylistRodrigo PerezDec 3, 2012
As epic, grandiose, and emotionally appealing as the previous pictures, The Hobbit doesn't stray far from the mold, but it's a thrilling ride that's one of the most enjoyable, exciting and engaging tentpoles of the year. Read full review
80
Time OutKeith UhlichDec 11, 2012
A mesmerizing study in excess, Peter Jackson and company's long-awaited prequel to the Lord of the Rings saga is bursting with surplus characters, wall-to-wall special effects, unapologetically drawn-out story tangents and double the frame rate (48 over 24) of the average movie. Read full review
80
EmpireDan JolinDec 10, 2012
The Hobbit plays younger and lighter than Fellowship and its follow-ups, but does right by the faithful and has a strength in Martin Freeman's Bilbo that may yet see this trilogy measure up to the last one. There is treasure here. Read full review
75
NPRBob MondelloDec 13, 2012
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey isn't "unexpected" at all, though between its lighter tone and a decade's worth of improvements in digital film techniques, there should be enough of a novelty factor to delight most fans. Read full review
75
Charlotte ObserverLawrence ToppmanDec 13, 2012
Jackson imposes a sense of grandeur but mostly loses Tolkien's sense of fun. Read full review
75
St. Louis Post-DispatchJoe WilliamsDec 13, 2012
At nearly three hours long, "An Unexpected Journey" has moments when the caravan seems both overstuffed and out of balance, but it's such a scenic trip that only a stubborn homebody could complain. Read full review
75
Miami HeraldRene RodriguezDec 12, 2012
There will be opportunities to see the picture in regular 24 frames per second, but I recommend going the whole hog and sampling what Jackson has come up with - a new way to watch movies and a new take on a universe that seemed to have exhausted its narrative possibilities. Read full review
75
New York PostLou LumenickDec 11, 2012
Piles on enough eye candy and action sequences to please fans, plus more humor than the three "Rings" films - even if it only occasionally achieves the trio's grandeur. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliDec 10, 2012
It isn't as delirious a journey as we experienced a decade ago, but it's still filled with wonder, monsters, and thrills. Read full review
75
Slant MagazineEd GonzalezDec 8, 2012
The film, still only clearing its throat, hints at a wellspring of emotional riches to come. Read full review
75
IndieWireEric KohnDec 3, 2012
If you're willing to just go with it, An Unexpected Journey is a competent ride, but as a whole it lacks purpose, giving the impression of a television program in its later seasons still chugging along while full aware that it has peaked. Needless to say, "Hobbit" fans will find plenty to soak in; others may get the feeling of being bludgeoned by deja vu. Read full review
70
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternDec 13, 2012
An overlong adventure enlivened by wonders. Read full review
67
The A.V. ClubTasha RobinsonDec 12, 2012
By comparison with the other Rings movies - the extremely high bar Jackson has already set for himself - Unexpected Journey falls short and feels muddled, yet too eager to please its fan base with an obligatory swordfight every few scenes. Read full review
63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam LaceyDec 14, 2012
In this fitfully engaging, but often patience-straining preamble to Hobbit adventures to come, there is one transporting 10 minutes of screen time. It happens when Bilbo meets the freakish, ring-obsessed creature Gollum. Read full review
63
Rolling StonePeter TraversDec 13, 2012
What saves the day is the spidery, schizoid Gollum, again performed by the great Andy Serkis through the craft of motion capture. Read full review
63
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsDec 13, 2012
Extracting three generously proportioned films from Tolkien's books made sense. But turning the relatively slim 1937 volume 'The Hobbit' into a trilogy, peddling seven or eight hours of cine-mythology, suggests a better deal for the producers than for audiences. Read full review
63
USA TodayClaudia PuigDec 12, 2012
While the production design is impeccable and the journey intermittently involving, The Hobbit is overlong and lacks the enchantment of the Lord of the Rings films. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeTy BurrDec 12, 2012
The downside is that "The Hobbit" no longer looks like a movie at all. It looks like a video. Read full review
60
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike ScottDec 13, 2012
An Unexpected Journey also proves that it is, indeed, possible to get too much of a good thing. Read full review
60
New York Daily NewsElizabeth WeitzmanDec 12, 2012
It's one thing to sit on your couch watching football in HD. It's another to view one of literature's most enduring fantasies in the same manner. The experience that felt so breathtakingly cinematic in Jackson's "Lord of the Rings" series now seems frustratingly fake. Read full review
60
The GuardianPeter BradshawDec 11, 2012
After 170 minutes I felt that I had had enough of a pretty good thing. The trilogy will test the stamina of the non-believers, and many might feel, in their secret heart of hearts, that the traditional filmic look of Lord of the Rings was better. Read full review
60
The New YorkerAnthony LaneDec 10, 2012
"All good stories deserve embellishment," Gandalf says to Bilbo before they set off, and one has to ask whether the weight of embellishment, on this occasion, makes the journey drag, and why it leaves us more astounded than moved. And yet, on balance, honor has been done to Tolkien, not least in the famous riddle game between Bilbo and Gollum. Read full review
60
The Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthyDec 3, 2012
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...There are elements in this new film that are as spectacular as much of the Rings trilogy was, but there is much that is flat-footed and tedious as well, especially in the early going. Read full review
60
VarietyPeter DebrugeDec 3, 2012
Jackson and his team seem compelled to flesh out the world of their earlier trilogy in scenes that would be better left to extended-edition DVDs (or omitted entirely), all but failing to set up a compelling reason for fans to return for the second installment. Read full review
58
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerDec 14, 2012
My first thought in watching The Hobbit was: Do we really need this movie? It was my last thought, too. Read full review
50
The New York TimesA.O. ScottDec 13, 2012
Tolkien's inventive, episodic tale of a modest homebody on a dangerous journey has been turned into an overscale and plodding spectacle. Read full review
50
Philadelphia InquirerSteven ReaDec 13, 2012
This is not about a reluctant hero drawing courage from some deep personal well. It's not about dread and danger. It's about visual effects. Read full review
50
SalonAndrew O'HehirDec 13, 2012
I'm afraid that whoever it was in the New York Film Critics Circle who voted for The Hobbit as best animated film had a point. And so did the people who suspected that this whole thing was a bad idea. Read full review
50
Austin ChronicleMarjorie BaumgartenDec 13, 2012
To sum it up, there is little that is unexpected in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. Rather than an epic continuation of Jackson's Middle-earth obsession, the film seems more like the work of a man driving around a multilevel parking garage without being able to find the exit. Read full review
50
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranDec 12, 2012
The result is a film that is solid and acceptable instead of soaring and exceptional, one unnecessarily hampered in its quest to reach the magical heights of the trilogy. Read full review
50
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzDec 12, 2012
You shouldn't be able to read a book faster than you can see it play out on-screen. Read full review
50
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinDec 10, 2012
The grandeur of the Lord of the Rings trilogy [has] been replaced by something that resembles tatty summer-stock theater. Read full review
50
Village VoiceScott FoundasDec 7, 2012
At any speed, the movie only springs to full life late in the day, during the first meeting of Bilbo and the tragic creature who will come to be known as Gollum (once again played by the sublime Andy Serkis). Read full review
50
TimeRichard CorlissDec 6, 2012
The movie lacks majesty. Grand in parts, the movie is too often grandiose or grandiloquent; and the running time is indefensible. Read full review
40
SlateDana StevensDec 10, 2012
More time in Middle Earth is exactly what The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey provides - so much more that the movie starts to feel like some Buddhist exercise in deliberately inflicted tedium. Read full review
40
Boxoffice MagazineJames RocchiDec 3, 2012
The Hobbit is just good enough to make you aware of how it could have been much, much better. If you take your kids-while shielding them from various nonhuman bad guys getting decapitated both repeatedly and, worse, bloodlessly-they'll have a good time. Bilbo Baggins' quest for adventure and Warner Bros' quest for cash will take him through three films. But your quest for epic, truly entertaining filmmaking will be more successful if you just stay home. Read full review
38
Washington PostAnn HornadayDec 13, 2012
It's a bloated, shockingly tedious trudge that manages to look both overproduced and unforgivably cheesy. Read full review
25
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleDec 13, 2012
If you loved the earlier films, these are moments you will hold on to, but they're very few, and they're not enough. Read full review
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