After the Lord of the Rings became landmark cinema, there was talk of bringing The Hobbit to the screen. Now it's arrived, but is its success a Shire Thing?
Young(ish) Bilbo Baggins is a hobbit content with his lot: for him his home in the Shire and the gentle comings and goings of Bag End are as about exciting as he wishes things to ever be. However when cantankerous wizard Gandalf the Grey comes knocking, it isn't long before Bilbo's home is ceiling-deep in hungry house-guests and talks of adventures. Gandalf wants Bilbo to accompany the dwarves in an attempt to reclaim their ancestral mountain home. Bilbo wants nothing to do with the perilous quest, but Gandalf can be quite persuasive, so despite his inner doubts, the hobbit finds himself racing to keep up with the group as they head out to parts unknown and dangerous…
In many ways little more needs to be said to describe the plot for The Hobbit, Peter Jackson's much-anticipated return to Middle-earth. Equally, there's no denying that this is 'epic' through and through - the sweeping cinematography, the CGI armies, the very nature of the 'quest' at the heart of the story. All the ingredients are here and back in force, the start of a trilogy of prequels to one of the most successful cinematic trilogies ever made and an adaptation of classic literature that has inspired generations. This is not a film where the audience goes in with no idea what to expect - and on every front it delivers the expected results.
Freeman is excellent in the role of the younger Bilbo Baggins (Ian Holm briefly reprising the original role - this new trilogy is essentially his recalling of his earlier adventures and fitting in the narrative seamlessly into a reprise of the first trilogy's opening moments). As in Sherlock, Freeman has an air of just-contained tolerance, reluctant nobility, channelling a quiet, careful but no less honourable bravery - where dwarves rush in, he's the one raising a cautious finger wondering if this is a good idea or not… but when the moment needs it, the unexpectedly adventurous hobbit moves from tolerant to tour-de-force. McKellen is as good as you'd expect and the supporting troupe of dwarves appears to be a Who's Who of British talent that includes Richard Armitage, Ken Stott, James Nesbitt, Aidan Turner, Christopher Lee and Sylvester McCoy. A Bafta Fellowship of the Ring, if you will.
But is it perfect? It would be wrong to nit-pick too much because what it gets right is wonderfully entertaining and definitively ambitious… this is no ill-conceived outing a la the Star Wars prequels... but there are some niggles amongst the stardust.
There are moments in The Hobbit that look like they come from a video game. (Perhaps the problem with that comparison is it serves just as much as a compliment about video game standards as it does sounding a cautious note about the film). The decision to shoot the adventure at 48fps (frames-per-second) gives the images on screen a new, clearly different texture that moves between cutting-edge console-game pixels and an almost documentary-appearance in certain scenes. The dwarf palace in the Lonely Mountain, the Goblin underground city, the ethereal nature of Rivendell... are all rendered majestically and magically, utterly believable but perhaps to the point of distraction. We're often noting the background’s panoramic qualities when we should be concentrating on the foreground. The set-piece battles (Orcs and trolls and dragons, oh my) do seem freshly set up for multi-platform gaming adaptation and too often veer into a love affair with impossibly kinetic shots rather than a clarity of who is actually doing what to whom. The stories of motion-sickness are most likely exaggerated, but it's not unlikely that your eyes may ache from trying to keep up.
There are also moments that will ring a little too familiar with anyone who has seen the Rings trilogy more recently. There are only so many ways that big (or little) hairy warriors can trudge through the countryside and tackle monsters and so, in many respects - literally and figuratively - we're covering similar ground, even if the characters themselves are doing it for the first time. Some intentional nods to the past work well - once again Gollum is an amazingly creepy creation, given translucent slimy flesh by CGI and a creepiest character courtesy of Andy Serkis - and the likes of Cate Blanchett and Hugo weaving turn up to be just as enigmatic and elvishly erudite as ever.
The only real drawback here is that while The Lord of the Rings took audiences by surprise and marked a true landmark in cinema, The Hobbit doesn't feel as striking - merely because it's re-visting rather than revolutionising. Its innate magic is there in abundance, but so is that significant feellng of commercial opportunism - look closely and the repertoire is now old tricks behind the fresh paint. The Hobbit was one book and the plan was to make it into two films. The decision to parse it into a new trilogy does raise suspicions about whether the material will stretch to nine hours of riotous rambling associations. The padding already shows.
You can’t NOT recommend The Hobbit... the magic endures...but the Unexpected Journey itself might yet benefit from a more succinct itinerary.
9/10
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