Ten years ago, I laid eyes on Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, and instantly fell in love. I realized pretty quickly that it was the perfect combination of style and substance: a film so loaded with story and detail, but also had enough style and action to make the experience truly epic. This experience would only be supplanted by The Two Towers and The Return of the King, the latter of which has taken its place as my personal number-one favorite movie.
After so many years of legal battles and creative turmoil, The Hobbit is finally adapted for the big screen. If anything could displace the Lord of the Rings as my favorite film trilogy, I was certain that it would be The Hobbit; if for no other reason than I found Tolkien’s The Hobbit is a far easier and funner read than LOTR, and I always knew that there would be moments that would make for excellent cinema.
Despite the underwhelming reviews and reception, I found The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey satisfying; it met my expectations perfectly. I won’t deny, however, that the film overall feels like a long-labored attempt to force lightning to strike twice. Not only because of all the story padding, connections to LOTR, returning stars, and the splitting of the story into three films, but also insomuch as trying to craft new iconic characters out of Bilbo and Thorin to mirror Frodo and Aragorn respectively. I think the thing that really gets on people’s nerves is the sheer audacity in taking a single book (one that was previously adapted into a humble, bite-sized 79-minute cartoon) and exploding it into a 500-minute franchise. Thus follows the common complaints that the films are too long, too padded, too big for their own good.
Personally, none of these factors really affected my enjoyment of the film. The only real drag I felt was in the opening act; the Shire scenes seemed to take a good while to wrap up. Once the party hit the road, the film explored the big plot points I remembered well from the novel’s first third, complete with awesome rip-roaring action. The film’s final act is pretty jam-packed with loads of orc-slaying mayhem. Above all, however, the film has a nice sprinkling of humor and character throughout, keeping things lightweight and even. I think the most memorable and satisfying of scenes, however, will be the major encounters that I remember fondly from the novel: outwitting the three trolls, for example, or the riddle scenes with Gollum, are all brought to life perfectly on the big screen.
The story for The Hobbit is as quintessential of a fantasy adventure as, well, Lord of the Rings. The film not only does a fine job of packing in loads of events, characters, and fine details from The Hobbit’s original narrative and story, but it also ties in some content from The Silmarillion and the appendices of Tolkien’s books. A lot of this is incorporated to make tangible ties with LOTR, allowing the film to serve as a proper prequel, while digging up additional subplots, conflicts, and details to layer onto all of Peter Jackson’s Middle-Earth films. Yes, the film could have all these extra scenes cut out, making the film trimmer. Frankly, I liked it the way it is. Some of the scenes helped me understand certain nuances of The Hobbit’s politics and backstories. Some helped in the nuances of established characters and events (especially in regards to chronicling Gandalf’s whereabouts, who would otherwise just pop in and out randomly, like in the book, but it would have probably alienated audiences further). Some is purely invented for the film series to streamline the continuity (purists might be outraged when they see Radagast on screen). It’s a bit early to tell where The Hobbit is going with all the threads it has grabbed, but it does serve a purpose in the long run. If nothing else, it’ll help average audiences connect and understand the Middle Earth on a deeper level, and set things up for later events in the next two films.
As expected, the film looks splendid, with quality photography and editing. I’m especially pleased to see that the filmmakers dropped the shakey-cam effects that were dispensed in the fight scenes of LOTR; just about every shot in The Hobbit is solid and steady. Acting is pretty decent from the whole cast; aside from all the familiar faces, Martin Freeman plays Bilbo with the right amount of nuanced uptightness, while Richard Armitage plays it tough as Thorin, and every other dwarf actor does their best to make their characters stand out in their own neat ways. Writing is great; the script adapts as much as it can from the novel, while allowing the film to breathe on its own. This production is loaded with excellent sets, props, costumes, and special effects. Music is nice too.
Perhaps I’m biased, because this is another film where I see nothing really wrong with it. If anything, it feels like more of the same as LOTR, with the same construction as Fellowship of the Ring. Even if it is a blatant cash-grab, drawing out the material across three movies to maximize the franchise, it is still a fair crowd-pleaser. Given that we still have the desolation of Smaug and the Battle of the Five Armies to witness on the big screen, I’m certain that An Unexpected Journey is but a small taste of greater things to come; things that may prove to be as epic, if not moreso, than LOTR! At the very least, the film does perfect justice to the original novel, while delivering a fine spectacle. I couldn’t ask for a finer film.
5/5 (Entertainment: Very Good | Story: Perfect | Film: Perfect)
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