I've been waiting anxiously for The Hobbit since the Return of the King. A big Tolkien fan and lover of the Lord of the Rings films, I sat through 9 years of waiting, of directorial change, of strange casting decisions (Elijah Wood?), and now there is not one Hobbit film but three. Unnecessary as this clearly is, I was still excited for it.
I finally got to see it, over a week after it was released, in the most basic format possible: 24 frames per second, 2D. While I still intend to see it in 48 fps/3D, since that's been mostly poorly received, I decided to see this first.
Firstly the film starts out much differently than the book did. It starts with old Bilbo's (Ian Holm) narration of the Smaug attack on Erebor. This took a little longer than a prologue needed to and it does bring up right away one of the film's biggest problems: it tries to be on the scale of The Lord of the Rings. The Hobbit is essentially a children's fairy tale, filled with humor and adventure - not so much action. Nevertheless, Jackson chose to go big with the action scenes and these will not let you down if that's what you're looking for. Still though, I think it does more to incite suspense into the viewer when Bilbo doesn't know what's going on when the dwarves arrive, letting him become interested as he hears the story. While once the movie gets going, Bilbo (Martin Freeman) of course doesn't know what the dwarves are doing, the audience does, so there isn't much exposition given. Essentially the same exposition is given, but it would have been more effective I think if it were dished out a bit later.
Like so many other pretty good films this year, this has a rough opening. The scenes in Bag End with the dwarves and Gandalf (Ian McKellen) show a yet-to-be-perfected humor from Peter Jackson. It's well-intentioned and it gets smoother as the film goes along, but in the beginning it's a little awkward.
Once the story really gets going we have Bilbo, Gandalf, and the dwarves journeying throughout Middle Earth. Here it's pretty similar to LOTR, as they encounter numerous obstacles which become action sequences. Some of them aren't even set up as obstacles but as flashbacks, like the elongated one with Thorin Oakenshield and the Pale Orc, which was a. completely pointless b. very entertaining and c. one of the most visually arresting things I've seen on film. These kinds of things can either be seen to help or hurt the film, depending on how you look at them.
The troll scene was great, everything I was hoping for. As was the scene with Gollum towards the end, which stood out as the highlight of the film. Gollum looks even better than he did in Lord of the Rings and Andy Serkis just has a knack for that character at this point.
Aside from Serkis, the performances are still pretty good. Ian McKellen continues to be great as Gandalf, though he's noticeably older here. Martin Freeman I especially enjoyed, as I thought he captured the innocence and likability of the character quite well. He reminded me at times of if Woody Allen were to play a hobbit, as he's awkward, stammering at times, and clearly doesn't know what he's doing in a lot of the situations; it's a great performance. The dwarves, aside from Richard Armitrage as Thorin, are all pretty minor characters. They look great and I have a feeling if we were to see the equivalent of the LOTR extended edition, we'd see that they all have their own personalities and they're all performed well. Unfortunately, they are given very little time to shine on their own, as so much more is going on.
I'd have to say the weakest parts came ironically with what I wanted to see the most. Since I've only read this and The Lord of the Rings I was really looking forward to how they handled the Necromancer and all the dealings with Dol Guldur. It was only mentioned in a few sentences in the novel, though I know Tolkien did a great deal of other writing on this. Unfortunately, this is handled with Sylvester McCoy as Radagast the Brown, the strangest and least interesting character in the film. Essentially the scene is only in the film to tie this with The Lord of the Rings, which leads to a meeting at Rivendell discussing the possible connections between the Necromancer and Smaug. What the hell?
It's actually a well done scene, with some eery moments and great delivery. And it's great to see Cate Blanchett in another Jackson/Tolkien movie and especially Christopher Lee. Ultimately, it's pointless to this film and probably to the series, unless they REALLY tie Smaug into Sauron, which I don't see happening.
This film had a bit of a pacing problem, too, as it was a bit stop and start. I was entertained throughout because I knew what was happening with a lot of the dialogue scenes, but I could see plenty of people not.
Visually speaking, it's a total masterpiece. The visual effects are stunning if a bit excessive, as with the action. The sets are all great and the makeup, too. It'll probably have no trouble keeping your attention even if the narrative strays a bit.
Overall I'd certainly recommend this film, though it's a bit of a disappointment and a step below the Lord of the Rings films. I'm certainly interested in the next two films.
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