The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

Well, it took JRR Tolkien to stir me from my long absence from reviewing movies. In case you were wondering, I am still seeing movies and should reach my usual goal of 50 new movies this year. My 2012 Top Ten will be published as soon as I see the important movies opening at Christmas.

Anyway, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is the first of three movies based on JRR Tolkien's first book that he wrote for his young children and published in 1937. The book, The Hobbit, is only 310 pages long, compared to the 1137 pages (including appendices) of the three books of The Lord of the Rings (LOTR). That comes to only about 100 pages per movie. And this first movie of the trilogy is not short, with a running time of almost 3 hours. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey only covers the recruitment of Bilbo (Martin Freeman) by Gandalf (Ian McKellen) and the dwarves led by Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitage), their capture by the Trolls, their capture by the Orcs, the finding and stealing of the ring from Gollum (Andy Serkis), and their rescue by the eagles. Also included is the back story of how the Lonely Mountain was lost to Smaug (voice by Benedict Cumberbatch). This is reasonable but much material has also been added from Appendix E of LOTR which has a nice timeline of events leading up to the action 60 years after The Hobbit, and also from the fevered mind of the director, Peter Jackson.

In particular, we hear that Mirkwood has been invaded by the evil Necromancer (also Benedict Cumberbatch) a.k.a. Sauron, and the White Council, consisting of those heavyweights, Gandalf, Elrond (Hugo Weaving), Galadriel (Cate Blanchett), and Saruman (Christopher Lee) has been formed in response. There is a visit to Rivendell in the book anyway, and so a scene with the White Council is easily added. But the most egregious addition is an interminable sequence involving Radagast the Brown (Sylvester McCoy), until now just an obscure answer in LOTR Pub Quizzes. He is one of the five wizards in Middle Earth along with Saruman and Gandalf. Only briefly mentioned in the books as a friend to animals, Radagast is portrayed in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey as a drug crazed cross between Uncle Billy in It's a Wonderful Life and the Enchanter (Some people call me Tim) in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Radagast drives a sled drawn by a team of rabbits which Peter Jackson loves so much that it is shown over and over again. This entire sequence could and should have been left on the cutting-room floor, if there still was such a thing. It is awful and embarrassing.

One more small thing that bothered me is that the scene where Bilbo finds the ring has been changed so that he doesn't just reach out in the dark and find the ring. There is also a scene at the end of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey when the party is trapped by the orcs, and Bilbo saves Thorin from a Warg. This addition is unlikely and unnecessary since Bilbo and/or Gandalf already have to save the dwarves' bacon during every crisis in the book. On the whole though, this first Hobbit movie hews fairly closely to the plot of the book, except that, as usual, Peter Jackson, can't leave the original characters alone. The worst scene, which harkens back to things that he did in LOTR, is where Bilbo can't take the insults of the dwarves anymore and decides to go home. This is very similar to the LOTR movies when Aragon doesn't want to go on the quest, Theoden wants to run away at Helm's Deep, Faramir becomes Boromir, Frodo wants to send Sam home, etc. etc.

Martin Freeman, most recently seen as Dr. Watson in the new Sherlock series on PBS, is great as Bilbo. I'm not sure that any other actor could be more perfectly suited to the role. And I quite liked the dwarves. The opening scene where they arrive at Bilbo's hole is well done although it goes on for much too long. Having seen the trailers, I was a bit worried that Peter Jackson was going to make the dwarves into the 13 Stooges, but he mostly stays away from this. The one exception is when they are captured by the Orcs and then escape with Gandalf's help. The fight and chase sequence is very reminiscent of Pirates of the Caribbean, and the Orc King strangely looks and sounds like Boss Nass from Star Wars Episode I. Otherwise, it is great to see Ian McKellen reprise his role as Gandalf and Gollum is still the best CGI character ever. He has only one extended scene with Bilbo, mostly right out of the book, where they trade riddles which is a highlight of the movie.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey looks to be a huge success at the box office making $84 million on the first weekend and it is getting very good word of mouth. But it's not that great. It would have been a much better movie and would have had much better pacing if about a third of it were cut. But when the director is Peter Jackson, there's no one to tell him this. It's definitely fun to see all these characters come to life, Radagast excepted. But it's a bit disappointing, of course, that after three hours, we find that Bilbo and the dwarves haven't met Beorn or been captured by the elves, let alone reached the Lonely Mountain. For that, we have to wait. The two sequels, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug and The Hobbit: There and Back Again are scheduled to open December 13, 2013 and July 18, 2014, respectively.