The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

 

Before watching the first half of Peter Jackon's three-part adaptation of The Hobbit, audiences need to come to terms with one thing - Nothing will ever come close to the first time we witnessed Jackson's take on Middle Earth back in 2001.  His Lord of the Rings film trilogy was truly lightning in a bottle, and any attempt to recapture it is bound to come up short.  Does that make The Hobbit a failure?  Far from it.  It's highly entertaining, energetically made, and has all the giant set pieces that we expect.  What's missing is the sense of discovery.  We've seen this world and its creatures.  That's not so much a knock against the film, as an unfortunate truth that audiences will have to realize if they are to judge this film fairly.

This is a hard film to review and judge, as it really is just the first half of a much larger story.  Whether or not Jackson truly succeeds again will not really be known until 2014, when we can watch all three films one after another.  But, as an introduction to a much larger story, it held my interest.  Yes, it drags at times, especially during the last hour or so.  This is largely due to the fact that The Hobbit, as a novel, is not very long.  And yet, this film (which only covers the first 100 pages or so of a 270-page story) runs for just under 3 hours.  This means that the movie is almost filled with too much of everything.  There is too much exposition, too many references and cameos related to the earlier films (which are set 60 years after this one), too many battle sequences that are technically well done, but seem to go on far too long, and scenic shots that sometimes seem to go on too long.  There are moments when the movie seems to be dragging its feet.

This is odd, as the story of The Hobbit is quite a simple one.  It was a light adventure story, which eventually led to the darker and more involved Lord of the Rings trilogy.  Peter Jackson often seems to be trying to make this story into something as big, if not bigger, than the earlier films.  This is both a blessing and a curse for the movie.  On the plus side, Jackson has lost none of his skill and talent for spectacle in the 10 years or so since the last three films.  It doesn't take the audience long to be transported back to Middle Earth, and the world that the filmmakers created for the screen.  However, on the other hand, there is a sense that the movie is almost killing time.  The pace has been slowed down to the point that it is never boring, but certainly noticeable.  Also, there are some sequences that seem to exist simply to create nostalgia for the earlier trilogy.  The opening 10 minutes, which feature the elderly Bilbo Baggins (Ian Holm) and young Frodo (Elijah Wood in a cameo) set moments before Fellowship of the Ring could have easily been removed with little consequence, and seem to simply have been inserted just to make film fans smile at seeing these actors again.

Even when the story does officially kick off, we still have a good 40 minutes or so of set up, involving a much younger Bilbo (now played by Martin Freeman) having a string of uninvited guests, when the wizard Gandalf (Ian McKellan) and the dwarf king Thorin (Richard Armitage) decide to make Bilbo's home the starting point of their journey.  This lengthy sequence pretty much serves as an introduction to the band of dwarfs who will be accompanying them, and a lot of comic relief, as they genuinely wreck Bilbo's home, have belching contests, and sing a song or two.  Once again, it's entertaining and it never offends, but it could have been shaved considerably with little to no harm to the final product.  The main point of this scene is that Bilbo has been selected to join this band on their quest to reclaim the dwarf kingdom from an evil dragon, and whether or not Bilbo will accept it, and leave his home.  There are some nice moments here between Gandalf and Bilbo, as he weighs his thoughts on whether or not he should accept the adventure, but a majority of it is devoted to physical comic relief as the dwarfs wreck the house.

Once Bilbo and the band set off on the adventure, things finally pick up, with some rather grand set pieces involving orcs, goblins, trolls, and the return of Gollum (Andy Serkis) in a scene that is easily the highlight of the film, mixing humor with terror.  We also get a lot of nostalgia to the earlier adventures, especially when the band of heroes visit the kingdom of Rivendell, and meet some familiar faces.  As the film winds down to its final hour, we pretty much get one battle sequence and set piece after another, which at least solves the problem of the movie dragging its feet, but creates another problem in that the movie sort of starts to resemble a video game, especially with all the CG creatures running all about the screen.  It's all expertly done, of course, and the CG is of amazing quality.  It's just that the action sequences literally come one after another with little to no time to digest what is happening, that it eventually becomes overwhelming.

And yet, I was never bored, and was always entertained.  This is a well-made movie.  This is a well-acted movie.  It simply lacks the mastery of storytelling and spectacle of the Lord of the Rings trilogy.  As a stand-alone film, it works, despite its flaws.  Even though I know how the story ends, I am anxious to see how Jackson and his team will handle the later scenes in upcoming films.  The few fleeting glimpses we get of Smaug the dragon are enough to entice anyone into wanting to see the next film.  For all of its problems, do not mistake The Hobbit for a failure, as it certainly is not.  There are some great moments here, and even if they don't always flow together perfectly, they still manage to stand out, and there is enough here for me to recommend it.

 

This is a movie best viewed with minimal expectations, and given what came before, that may be hard for a lot of audience members.  I have a feeling that some may judge it too harshly.  Is The Hobbit more flawed than some of the earlier films?  Yes, I think so.  But it is still hugely entertaining, and returns us to a world that is still just as wondrous as it was before.  For all that it does wrong, there is so much more it does right, and even more that it can improve on in the next two years to come.

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