The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (’12 review)

4 outta 5

If you were a fan of the Lord of the Rings trilogy you’d have to be rather jaded to walk out of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, part 1 of the prequel trilogy to Lord of the Rings, and think that it doesn’t fit perfectly well into the established series.  Fans of Rings will obviously dig The Hobbit.  Viewers of the first Rings flick, Fellowship of the Ring, will notice that plot structure is almost the exactly same but this film has a more of a playful tone.  And like the other films it really takes its time. On home viewing with multiple pauses it’ll feel less like an endurance test.  Basically, if you enjoy the world this is a welcome return. 

Sixty years before Frodo (Elijah Wood) brought the One Ring to Mount Doom, his uncle Bilbo (Ian Holm at the start of the movie as the elderly version and “The Office” and “Sherlock” actor Martin Freeman as the younger version who the movie is based around) went on a quest himself.  He meets up with the wizard Gandalf the Grey (Ian McKellen) who throws Bilbo in with a lot of dwarves who want to reclaim their home in the Misty Mountains from a nasty dragon.  So begins their episodic journey across the land as they trek, but don’t quite get, to their destination. 

If you’ve seen Fellowship this will feel very similar; they hang around in the Hobbit shire for a bit, make their way through confrontations and eventually to safe haven with elves at Rivendale as Gandalf says serious things, then there’s a gangbusters action sequence which leads into a not-quite-as-good climatic showdown.  Fellowship was an adaptation of a single novel but The Hobbit is taking a single novel and splitting it up into three movies. So the end point of this flick is a deliberate filmmaker’s choice to have it ape Fellowship so closely.  It’s either intentional thematic resonance or just lazy.  The company of dwarves in this movie aren’t quite as diverse or interesting as the eclectic group that ran around in Fellowship.  Aside from the lead dwarf Thorin (Richard Armitage) who kind of comes across as a bit of a dour killjoy, they’re basically indistinguishable aside from facial hair.  There’s so many they blur together as a screaming chorus.

Returning vets Wood and Holm are fun to see again as a nice callback to Rings.  With a bigger role than in the series before, McKellen is the second star here and he easily slides back into his iconic role.  He gets a great monologue about exactly why he chose Bilbo for the quest and McKellen nails the bit with a wistful and hopeful tone.  Other actors pop up from before and it’s a hoot to see Christopher Lee as the white wizard Saurman again.  Giving the movie a shot of pep when needed, Andy Serkis returns as Gollum for a spectacular bit where he trades riddles with Bilbo.  Serkis’ CGI character runs the emotional gamut with Gollum being threatening, humorous, pathetic, and deadly all at once.  The film, quite rightly, differentiates itself from Rings with a more comedic tone.  This is helped by Freeman who is not only a gifted comedic actor, he’s a blast to watch mug in small moments, but works very well at the dramatic bits showing hints of emotion underneath.  One character who strikes a wrong note is Sylvester McCoy’s bumbling wizard only because he tends to ramble on somewhat irritatingly and the character doesn’t contribute much aside from laying down plot-points that will be resolved in later movies.

An Unexpected Journey is mostly a series of unfortunate events and encounters.  Happily, there isn’t a stinker sequence in the bunch with throw-downs with hordes of orcs, swordplay, and general chaos.  There’s also a nicely comical bit where three trolls threaten to eat Bilbo and company and the sequence is bizarre and hilarious.  Even if it sometimes gets bogged down in fake-history monologues, Director Peter Jackson spruces it up with some colourful flashbacks as the scope of The Hobbit is astonishingly ambitious.  

This film was shot at 48 frames per second in 3D with fancy digital camera and result balances between looking fantastic and sometimes really cheap.  This actually looks more like video sometimes but insanely detailed video.  Another weird side-effect is that at certain times things look sped up unnaturally but it gets less noticeable as the film goes on.  Only available in a limited number of theatres, 48 frames per second is an interesting experiment that may not succeed fully but is worth checking out.  There’s a trade-off between amazing resolution and things looking slightly, well, wrong from time to time.    

If Lord of the Rings as a whole was a home-run, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is a really well hit triple. That isn’t bad at all and when completed has the potential to be as good as the Rings films.  Just have to wait a year and a half until it’s done.  Start pacing yourself now.