Let's get one thing out of the way here ; was it even necessary that these movies be made? Forget the fact that it's now a trilogy, when one well-executed film may have been perfectly serviceable. Was it necessary to make The Hobbit at all? Is this a thing the world needs? To the casual viewer, this whole project probably reeks of self-indulgence and bloated excess. But I cannot be objective about this film. I really and truly cannot. Because I am very decidedly not a casual viewer. I'm one of those people who find the extended boxset DVDs of the Lord of the Rings trilogy to be too short. In the case of The Hobbit, I would have been perfectly happy if Peter Jackson had chosen to include all five thousand goddamn verses of Over the Misty Mountains. I am one of that generation of teenage girls who had a poster of Orlando Bloom on her bedroom wall when she was 13. Oh yeah. I went there. If you were 13 years old at around the same time I was, and did not have a crush on the utter lushness that was the Orlando Bloom of 10 years ago, then you :
a. are a lying liar who LIES
b. genuinely and unfortunately missed out on all this floppy-haired pretty :
I mean come on. You know your tweenager ass would have been ALL OVER THAT. Loving Orlando Bloom was a crucial element in the formative years of an entire generation of lady people, yo.
What I mean to say is that the LOTR films were a huge, huge influence in my life during that transition from childhood to adolescence (along with Harry Potter) and I generally have a MASSIVE emotional attachment to Peter Jackson's Middle Earth, as many people do. But the Lord of the Rings films were lightning in a bottle ; every element of it seemed to come together seamlessly, as if fated. Ten years, countless re-watches and endless oceans of tears later, there's still not a single character or snippet of dialogue or camera shot or piece of music that I would change or cut. And to expect the same magic from The Hobbit trilogy would be asking too much, so I don't. Which is why I am all too ready to acknowledge this movie's flaws, and there are many flaws.
Um, flaws. And stuff.
a. It's a tall order to turn a 280 page children's book into a sprawling 3-movie epic, and these films run the very real risk of making everything seem - to quote Bilbo Baggins himself - like "butter spread over too much bread". The writers are essentially working in reverse here - while in LOTR it was about ruthlessly cutting shit out of Tolkien's rambling narrative in order to create a strong, cohesive triple-serving of AWESOMENESS, in this case it's about padding up a very simple plot to make sure all 3 hours of screen time feel like it has a purpose. And it doesn't always succeed. The Hobbit suffers a little in terms of flow and pacing ; a lot of it felt like a series of vignettes woven together as opposed to a seamless progression of plot. And I do have my lingering doubts about how the rest of the book (barely 180 pages of it left!) is going to be spread out over another 6+ hours, even including Tolkien's additional historical material that Jackson is adding on to the original story.
b. I did not see the film in the very controversial 48 frames per second format, so I can't comment on that. I will say, however, that the CGI was a bit overdone in this one. The all-digital orcs and wargs tended to look fake as opposed to menacing. And frankly, Azog the Defiler would have made for much more genuinely frightening nightmare fuel material had he been a dude in makeup rather than an all-digital creation.
I think about the stuff that really scared me in the LOTR trilogy ; the Ringwraiths, for example. What was frightening about them was my knowledge that there were real people under those cloaks. There was a sense of solid, formidable, threatening WEIGHT. It's the kind of presence that the all-CGI representation of Azog can't quite convey ; he's a little too lightweight on the eye to really be as legitimately threatening as his character is meant to be.
c. There were a couple of scenes that dragged a little too much for my liking. While the very long scene of the dwarves arriving at Bilbo's house was a joy to behold, the White Council bit at Rivendell started testing my patience. It was just a bunch of old people waffling on and on about the events that would eventually lead to everything that happens in LOTR. While I appreciate the effort to make links and parallels to the trilogy, I really could have done with someone cutting this scene to about half its current length.
d. Now I love Howard Shore, but the music in this one felt a little too lazy and recycled. As much as I enjoy hearing familiar pieces of music from LOTR again (I'm pretty sure Peter Jackson knows that we all dissolve into a collective mass of weeping mush every time we hear this melody played in any form) I really do wish The Hobbit could have been given its own, full-fledged sonic identity. It's no accident that the best piece in the whole film is one of the only originally composed pieces that is unique to THIS movie, and what a piece of music it is.
But it's not all complaints! Here is some good shit about the movie.
Like, good shit, you guys.
a. Martin Freeman is pretty much the best hobbit to have ever hobbited. Hands down. He does what he does best - cranky, homely guy who just wants to be left alone to enjoy a cup of tea and keeps being reluctantly dragged into having adventures by strange people who befriend him against his will - and is PERFECT at it. His comic timing is as impeccable as always - the audience in my cinema spent more time laughing at the facial expressions he was making in the background than any of the actual jokes happening in the foreground. But what he also brings is some surprisingly heavy duty dramatic acting chops (not so suprising if you have already had the bittersweet privilege of being reduced to tears by Mr. Freeman's turn as Dr. John Watson in THAT EPISODE of BBC Sherlock, bless him). He brings heart, and warmth and humour to a role which could have almost been too easy and routine for him. Whatever happens in the next two installments of this seemingly ill-advised trilogy, the role of Bilbo Baggins is safe in the hands of this guy.
b. Thorin Motherfucking Oakenshield, played by a longtime but low profile favourite of mine, Richard Armitage. Now, book-Thorin is a grumpy, rude, cantankerous, greedy old git who is far too in love with the sound of his own voice. So I understand and applaud the decision to make movie-Thorin much younger (and much hotter) and a sort of flawed tragic-heroic figure. Movie-Thorin is noble, regal, proud to a fault and quietly dignified; he inspires a kind of I-will-follow-him-into-death loyalty among his fellow dwarves rather than simply demanding it. He's also given a very detailed backstory, involving the fall of his kingdom Erebor at the hands (claws?) of the dragon Smaug, and his existence as an exiled prince. His main motivation is not just to retrieve his family's treasure but to reclaim his throne and give his people a home, so he also carries the burden of responsibility and pain and loss and grief and anger. It's a very smart decision, narrative and characterization-wise ; you get a movie -Thorin who is much more admirable, sympathetic and bad ass than book-Thorin.
This also raise the stakes within The Hobbit ; the fate of the world does not hang in the balance here, as it does in LOTR. The Hobbit is literally just about a bunch of dwarves who want to go kill a dragon and get their gold back. That's all. That's it. The attention lavished upon movie-Thorin's backstory and the tragedy of the kingdom of Erebor gives both his character and the journey itself a greater depth and meaning that they would not really have had otherwise. And taking Thorin's character arc into consideration, I believe there will be MUCH more emotional resonance and payoff by the time we get to the third and last film, and I'm personally very much looking forward to that.
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I'm also glad that the fabulous and underrated Richard Armitage (What intensity! What broodish brooding! What a loin-melting voice! What brain-mushing beauty! Most nom-worthy of all cravat-wearers!) is finally due to get some big-time exposure and success, as he so richly deserves. Thorin Oakenshield probably won't win him any Oscars but LORD it better make some bigshot casting people sit up and pay attention, because this guy OWNS everything about this character.
c. The Riddles in the Dark sequence was pretty much worth the entire price of admission. It was funny and sad and tense and completely, utterly compelling in all the best ways. I probably wouldn't complain if the whole movie had just been three hours of Bilbo and Gollum tossing riddles at each other in that cave. And speaking of Gollum, who do I have to punch in the face to get Andy Serkis some kind of international award for being an awesome human being? The guy is a bleeding treasure of our age.
d. This is more of a neutral observation, but differentiating all 12 dwarves from each other (with the exception of Thorin because he is just so MAJESTIC) is pretty much impossible at this stage. They are all rowdy and lovable as a whole, but pretty much indistinguishable as individuals. Kili, Fili and Bofur have enough screen time to establish some semblance of separate identities, but it will probably take at least one more movie to really get to know them all. The rest of the company are currently just a mesh of beard and leather and interchangeable one-liners to me at this point. Also, the decision to make some dwarves more prominent and/or likable over others will also eventually serve its purpose (you don't think I see what you're doing here, Jackson?) in the third film, in which [spoilers.highlight to read] EVERYONE YOU LOVE WILL DIE [end spoilers].
e. A few friends have complained about the lack of emotional payoff in this movie ; that any real emotional resonance did not genuinely come through until the last 20-30 minutes of the film, and even then it felt mechanical and scripted rather than earned. I think Martin Freeman and Richard Armitage deserve a lot more props for what they brought to those scenes in terms of emotional resonance, because they had a relationship dynamic arc to work through (in regards to Thorin and Bilbo) and they made it as sincere and believable as possible. I think what we all mean by "emotional resonance" is something along the lines of "THIS MOVIE DID NOT MAKE ME CRY A BATH TUB OF TEARS". Which, again, is probably a detrimental side effect of comparing this to the LOTR films. But it's so hard not to, when nearly everything about The Hobbit feels so much like a super-cranked up exercise in nostalgia ; the same music, the same characters returning, snippets of dialogue and scenes that parallel things that have already come before.
So here's the thing ; as a movie in itself, The Hobbit is fairly decent. It is no Lord of the Rings, and I don't think it ever will be, and it's probably better if you lower your expectations starting right now. Were there flaws? Many. Could it have been a much, much better film? Indisputably. Will I pay to go see the next two movies? Also yes. Will this trilogy own my heart as much as Frodo & co. have? I don't know. That really does remain to be seen. Will I spend the foreseeable future trawling through the Richard Armitage tag on Tumblr and crying over what a fine specimen of male perfection he is? Yes. Yes, that too.
HOW IS YOUR FACE AN ACTUAL THING THAT EXISTS, SIR.
Ultimately I'm just glad to be back in Middle Earth again. And I think this movie was, at its core, made for people like me, ready and willing to have ALL the nostalgia wrung out of my tear ducts once again, ten years on. I don't even care if I'm being emotionally manipulated here, just TAKE ALL MY MONEY, PETER JACKSON. Personally I can't wait for The Desolation of Smaug this December. Until then I'll be dripping snot all over my LOTR DVD covers as I indulge in yet another all-weekend trilogy marathon. The extended box set versions of course. Followed immediately by the extended cast commentary versions. Because we do it the hardcore way, or we don't do it at all.
