Snippitts of Illusions

An Unexpected Review

I got the opportunity to attend The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey yesterday evening at an early showing of the film on December 13th. I'd like to give you all a little review.

Most of us, even the most anti-literate of us, are familiar with the Hobbit, even if it's just in passing or from hearing about it after having seen the Lord of the Rings trilogy. This little novel (it's just a little over 300 pages long) was the first foray into Middle Earth and tells the tale of a little hobbit by the name of Bilbo Baggins and his journey with 13 dwarves and an old wizard to take back their underground fortress from a hideous dragon.

That sums up the plot up nicely. Tolkien wrote the book as a fairy tale to tell his children. He then went and tweaked a few things and referenced it heavily in Lord of the Rings tying to the two books together. To look at the novel as a prologue to LotR's is incorrect, just as looking at LotR's as a sequel to this one is incorrect. They take place in the same world and have some of the same characters but both stories are very different in nature. LotR's is a dark tale. There's a weight about the story itself that is hard to overcome. The Hobbit is light hearted. Even it's darkest moments have a bit of whimsy about them. The film is no different.

Peter Jackson, who is a film maker I quite like has taken us back to the magical land of Middle Earth in this film and while it's certainly far from perfect it is a damned good time.

The movie opens with a Bilbo setting pen to paper and relating the history of The Lonely Mountain, the dwarven kingdom of Erebor's fall and the descent of the clan of Thror into wanderers with out a home. Visually this opening is incredible. The kingdom of Erebor is amazing to look upon and all I can say is "THAT'S what a dwarven city looks like!" The film then cuts back to the time period just before LotR's takes place and we see Bilbo and Frodo discussing his party and Bilbo reflecting on his past, the adventures that led him to where his life has ended up. Then the movie slides into a flashback and we see a young Bilbo (played by Martin Freeman) enjoying a smoke on his bench being suddenly interrupted by Gandalf (by the superior Ian McKellen).  From here the story is set in motion.

Bilbo is inundated with dwarves that night, and much to his flabbergasted chagrin, they keep coming. Taking over his house they raid his pantry and make themselves more than at home, settling in with games that involve throwing his dishes and singing songs. Soon Gandalf arrives, and shortly afterwards it's Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitage), who is the leader and the grandson of the original king under the mountain.

Thorin lays out his quest to Bilbo, and the other dwarves it's here that Bilbo discovers he is to be the burglar in the party. Bilbo rejects the offer, and as the dwarves sing a solemn song Bilbo drifts to sleep. Early the next morning Bilbo regrets his decisions and runs out the door to catch up with the dwarves.

From here the adventure begins. Bilbo soon discovers the road life is a little tougher than he anticipated. We are treated to a montage of the group travelling through forest and swamp, over hill and dale. We see a flashback about how Thorin received the name Oakenshield and are introduced to the trilogies primary antagonist Azog, the pale orc (played by Manu Bennett). The group encounter a small trio of trolls and we see that they are being hunted by orcs. Gandalf also waxes poetical about wizards and we are introduced to Radagast the Brown (Sylvester McCoy) a wizard of Gandalf's order that lives in the wilderness and is friends to animals, even riding a sled pulled by large rabbits. Radagast has discovered that there's some evil infecting Mirkwood, and comes to Gandalf with this information. Giving him a sword that had been sealed away centuries ago. Soon the party is chased and hounded by a group of orcs and Gandalf leads them to the elven outpost of Rivendell to escape. The dwarves, who are bitter towards the elves when they turned their back on the dwarves during the invasion of Smaug, are given comfort and amenities by Elrond (Hugo Weaving) and the elves of Rivendell.

In Rivendell we find Sauruman and Galadriel have arrived to speak with Gandalf. He warns the two of them of  the shadow in the forest. Saruman dismisses him while Galadriel heeds his warning. The dwarves leave Rivendell during this meeting under the cover of moonlight, knowing that Elrond and Saruman don't agree with their journey to the Lonely Mountain. In the mountains they endure inclement weather and the mountains themselves come to life, turning into giants that hurdle boulders and fistfight one another. In order to escape this insanity the group hide in a cave hoping to set out again during the morning.

While in the cave Bilbo comes to a decision  after being looked down upon by the dwarves (and particularly Thorin) he makes to set off back home. He's stopped by Bofur who tries to convince him to stay. Bilbo points out to the dwarf that he's not cut out for life on the road because unlike the dwarves he has a place to call his own. Bofur looks to be set to let Bilbo go when the floor of the cave gives out beneath them and they are revealed to have been laying on a trap.

The pit leads to a huge underground complex controlled by goblins. The goblins quickly round up the dwarves but Bilbo manages, for a moment to slip away. He's attacked by a goblin and the two of them tumble down a ledge deeper into the caverns. Bilbo survives, the goblin.. well he survives too but not for long.

The dwarves are brought to the Great Goblin, a large corpulent beast of thing with an almost sonorous voice (provided by Barry Humphries). He at firsts hints that the dwarves will endure enslavement (then perhaps be the focus of a meal) until he discovers Thorin's sword Ocrist (which he found in the lair of the trolls) which was used by the elves in the first age to kill many goblins, then decides to kill the dwarves outright. They are only saved by the timely arrival of Gandalf who leads an escape of the dwarves and kills the Great Goblin int he process.

Bilbo meanwhile meets Gollum (Andy Serkis reprising his role from Lord of the Rings). Gollum takes the goblin who fell with Bilbo (not seeing the hobbit) and drags him to an island in the center of his underground lake and kills him. While Gollum takes care of the goblin, Bilbo discovers a plain gold ring that Gollum had dropped, he slips it in his pocket and goes to spy on the creature. Gollum soon discovers Bilbo who draws his sword on the pitiful creature to keep him at bay. Gollum, proposes they play a game of riddles, if Bilbo wins Gollum will show him the way out, and if Gollum wins then he gets to eat Bilbo. After trading a few riddles Bilbo absent mindedly asks the question "What have I got in my pocket?" Taking this to be another riddle Gollum flies into a rage and goes to put the ring on he discovers its missing and attacks Bilbo who ends up with the ring on his finger. Bilbo follows Gollum and discovers the exit just as the dwarves are leaving. He rejoins them and soon they regroup with Gandalf and Thorin leading the way. Giving the party no time to rest.

They are finally confronted at night by Azog, the mysterious white orc that Thorin thought he had killed so many years ago. The attack against the dwarves looks grim and even Bilbo stands fast and brave against the small war party of orcs. The group is saved in the nick of time by Great Eagles the Gandalf summons. They are deposited on a high crag where Thorin admits he was wrong about Bilbo and welcomes him into the group as an equal. Here's where the movie ends, with the party looking down into the Mirkwood and the next leg of their trek.

The movie is long. This may be the first criticism leveled against it. There's scenes that go on long past the point they should (the mountain giants fighting and the chase through the goblin underground being the two prime examples) even others that might go on a bit despite being admittedly fun (the party at Bilbo's near the beginning of the film). That being said perhaps only about 10 or 15 minutes could be realistically shaved off the film with out ruining its sense of fun.

The second point of criticism is that for the most part the dwarves were just bodies. There are certainly a few that get a lot of characterization: Thorin of course, Bofur has a lot of character come out as well as Dwalin (Graham McTavish) who is the first dwarf to arrive at Bilbo's house and Dori (Mark Hadlow) who is the second to arrive and tells the story of how Thorin got his name. The rest are given only a few moments to make something of their character which otherwise get's no play (and nearly no dialogue). This is a criticism that can be leveled at the book as well. The dwarves do get fleshed out a bit more in the film that Tolkien did in his book, only because we have strong visual ques to keep each of them separate.

There's also a lot of stuff that's not in the book. This isn't as egregious as I think it could be. A majority of the extra material does come from sources like the Appendices to the Lord of the Rings, the Unfinished Tales, and the Simarillion. Of course Jackson and Co do make up a lot of it as well and some of the interpretations are of course very unique. This being said, most of the added material actually does add to the narrative and makes the story fairly robust.

Even though the novel wasn't a prelude to Lord of the Rings (strictly speaking) the film very much is. It's set up that way and the fact that it's told in flashback (and presumably being written down in the manner in which it is told) lends a certain over the top epicness that for the most part the Lord of the Rings doesn't have (save the deus ex Gandalf scenes). It doesn't feel like Lord of the Rings, which is a criticism that I've seen leveled at this film time and time again. It's true it doesn't. We get a more fleshed out world here than we did in Lord of the Rings. As strange as it is to say, it's true, one thing that Lord of the Rings lacked was a feeling that there was a greater middle earth outside the path that the main characters took. This movie gives us that from the get go. It's also more fun than Lord of the Rings. It's supposed to be. It's based off a children's story. Lord of the Rings, for as much as I love it, is a very depressing tale and even the ending (where good triumphs over evil) is tragic. The Hobbit is fun and that's refreshing.

So while the film might be long, lack strong characterization for most of its characters and take some tremendous liberties with the source materials the bottom line is it's a fun movie and definitely worth seeing in the theaters.

I can't wait for the next one.

Labels: Movie Reviews

posted by F.G. Shaw @ 6:45 PM