Flick Review: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

The Hobbit:  An Unexpected Journey (2013)

The Lord Of The Rings, when it first came out several years ago, was rather revolutionary at the time.  It took source material that was regarded to be difficult to adapt as a live action film, and was able to turn it into a film that not only appealed to the fans of the books, but also to a mainstream audience.  It catapulted several stars, such as Orlando Bloom and Viggo Morenstein, into stardom, won a bunch of awards, including Best Picture for Return Of The King, and made billions of dollars in merchandise and movie sales.  The entire trilogy is regarded to be a modern masterpiece.  But for some of the fans of the original Tolkien novels, the films felt incomplete, because of the omission of the first book, and the prequel of the series, The Hobbit.  It seemed odd to have Bilbo's story, how he got the ring, as well as some of the references made to in during the series, to not be told.  However, these fears were abated when Peter Jackson did announce that he did intend to eventually turn the book into a film.  I just didn't expect the book to be stretched into a trilogy.

The story follows Frodo Baggins' (who makes a cameo in the film) uncle Bilbo, a hobbit who has led an rather quiet life until he encounters the wizard Gandalf The Grey.  Almost unexpectedly, Bilbo finds that he has been enlisted by the wizard into the quest to reclaim the lost Dwarven Kingdom of Erebor, which fell to the dragon Smaug years ago.  Although he initially refuses to participate, Bilbo has a change of heart and joins the company of thirteen dwarves, led by Thorin Oakenshield, the heir to Erebor's throne. The journey is filled with danger, as the company encounters Orcs, Wargs, Goblins, as well as the presence of some dark power rising in the woods, as they attempt to make their way back to the Lonely Mountain to challenge Smaug.  Also, something else lies in the journey, waiting for Bilbo to find it:  a mysterious object that will affect not just Bilbo's life, but also the fate of all of Middle-Earth itself...

For the sake of full disclosure, The Hobbit was actually my favorite of the LOTR series. I enjoyed the characters more, it's entire narrative was contained in a single volume, and had enough visuals to make it a feast for the imagination. The biggest fear I had, going into the film, was what the film makers decided to do in order to extend the narrative. At the most, I thought the Hobbit could be extended into two movies, but not three. As with the Lord Of The Rings, Jackson remedies this by using some of the other supplementary material that exists to help flesh out the story, as well as pursue some of the other plotlines that exist in the original novel.  The most notable of this is the presence of the Necromancer, which was only mentioned in a few passages in the original book, but in the film is now turned into a very real and imminent danger.

Jackson also takes time to tell some backstory as well, going into the story of how the Dwarves were expelled from their homeland, as well as the source of their dislike of the Elves, which is evident at times in the relationship between Gimli and Legolas in Lord Of The Rings.  There are also some other sequences made in order to tie this trilogy in with that of The Lord Of The Rings films.  All of these additions are nice, and do serve a purpose to explain the story.  However, they do tend to drag, which when combined with The Hobbit's own slow start, does result in the film being a bit slow in the beginning.

The visuals in the film, as all LOTR's films, are stunning.  There are some beautiful panoramic shots of the New Zealand countryside.  Rivendale, the Elventown close to the Misty Mountains, returns in all of it's dreamy, ethereal majesty, and a couple of new settings, the Goblin caves as well as Erebor itself, also look absolutely stunning.  Other memorable sequences from the books, such as Bilbo's encounter with Golem, the Dwarves' frantic escape from the Goblins, and finally, the rescue by the Eagles, are all brilliantly done, much as we have come to expect from Jackson's prior work on Tolkien.

The cast is exceptional, also as we have come to expect.  Martin Freeman, who is famous for his wonderful portrayal of Dr. Watson from the BBC Sherlock series, is Bilbo.  Much as his Watson, Freeman's Bilbo comes off as likable, although prone to the occasional awkward outburst.  He's brave, loyal, and has a noble quality to him that makes you take an instant admiration and liking to him.  These are qualities that were similar to the qualities that the four hobbits had in the prior film series, except all rolled into one.  However, Bilbo's character is not strictly contained to the book, as Jackson has Bilbo choosing to be a much more active agent in his fate, as opposed to the book, where he was at first kind of just along for the ride.  This, along with other changes to the narrative that Jackson has added, show Bilbo as being With this change, there result in other additions to the narrative, give Freeman a chance to show Bilbo at his best, and he does so wonderfully.

The dwarf company replaces the Fellowship in this trilogy, and the casting is fairly dead on.  Richard Armitage plays Thorin, who is every bit as serious, noble, stubborn and unyielding as he was in the novel.  Ken Stott plays Balin, who was probably my favorite dwarf of the novel, although he's much older in this movie than he was in my memory.  Other notable dwarves are Fili (Aidan Turner), who will likely be this film's bit of eye candy, much as Legolas was in the prior film, while James Nesbitt plays Bofur, who has a small role, but somewhat fun role as an early friend to Bilbo.  I'm sure all of the other dwarves will have greater roles in time, but at the moment, the movie merely sets up the new universe, while also trying to introduce multiple new characters at one pop.

Returning the series are Ian McKellen, Hugo Weaving, Cathe Blantchett, and Christopher Lee, as Gandalf the Grey, Elrond, Lady Galadriel, and Sarumon, respectively.  Gandalf is what we expect at this point, an advisor to the dwarves, as well as a protector to the hobbits in the journey.  Unlike the Gandalf in the Rings trilogy, this Gandalf is much more of brawler, due to his powers not yet achieving the strength that they would in the later films.  Sarumon and Galadriel are in the film to possibly set up the future conflict with the Necromancer, as well as serve as another tie-in to the prior trilogy, while Elrond's role in the book was minor, but important.

In closing, the first Hobbit film is a great film, and one that you should see.  It does take a while to get started, and it is overly long in some places, but all in all, it's a movie worth the price of the ticket.