For those of you that read J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit as children, who delighted in Bilbo Baggins’s very unexpected adventure alongside Gandalf the Grey and that motley company of dwarves, and have waited all your lives to see the tale brought to life in film, get ready to be delighted again. And hey, for those of you who didn’t read the book but just want to see what all the fuss is about, you might just like The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, too. Just be sure to go to the bathroom before the movie starts — it’s long — and be prepared to come back next year for Part 2.
Near the outset of this prequel story set 60 years before the events of The Lord of the Rings, young Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman) finds his tranquil existence in The Shire disrupted one good morning by the appearance of the wizard Gandalf (Sir Ian McKellen, reprising his role from the first trilogy), who has decided that Bilbo is in need of a little adventure.
Adventure, as you may or may not already know, is antithetical to the existence of hobbits. They live for the comforts of home and village: good food, ale, pipeweed, and routine, and so Bilbo rebuffs Gandalf’s decision. But that does nothing to prevent thirteen intrepid dwarves, led by the stern yet charismatic Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitage), from showing up at his door, taking over his dining room and pantry, and sharing a bold plan to reclaim the vast treasure lying in their ancestral home, the lost kingdom of Erebor under the Lonely Mountain in the East. The treasure is guarded by the gigantic dragon Smaug, who took Erebor from the dwarves after Thorin’s grandfather, King Thror, foolishly hoarded enough gold to attract the dragon’s attention. The dwarves have no hope of taking the treasure if they confront Smaug directly, but Gandalf presents an alternative: enlist the stealthy skills of a master burglar to enter Erebor through a secret door. To Bilbo’s disbelief and horror, he is the ‘master burglar’ Gandalf has in mind.
So begins Bilbo’s fateful journey, which will bring him, the wizard, and the dwarves into contact with hungry trolls, vengeful orcs, mysterious elves, and a certain mad creature named Gollum (once again portrayed by Andy Serkis) in possession of a very familiar magical ring. And that’s just the first half of the story.
When the final Lord of the Rings installment, 2003’s The Return of the King, made its final bow in theaters and won all eleven of the Oscars it was nominated for the following year, it might have seemed like the perfect, triumphant end of the adventures in Middle Earth for Peter Jackson and his writing cohorts. After all, how could they possibly top such critical and commercial success? That end seemed all the more certain when Jackson sued New Line Cinema in 2005, claiming that the studio owed him additional revenue for The Fellowship of the Ring. No way could the miffed studio and the supposedly greedy director re-team to tell another Tolkien-penned tale, right?
Wrong, of course, and audiences young and old are the better for it. Visually, this new film is easily the equal of Jackson’s Lord of the Rings work, and thanks to the advance of film and special effects technology it even surpasses the original trilogy in some ways. The use of “high-frame rate” filming — shooting the film at 48 frames per second, as opposed to the industry standard 24 frames — results in 3D images of breathtaking clarity during even frenetic chases, chaotic battle scenes, and sweeping camera motion. Improved motion capture results in an even more convincing and mesmerizing appearance by Gollum, as well as this film’s chief antagonists, the Orcs. There’s eye candy everywhere for both Tolkien fans and casual moviegoers, and repeat viewings might be necessary to take in absolutely everything.
But none of that would matter if Jackson and fellow screenwriters Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, and Guillermo del Toro had failed to craft a compelling screen story and characters to inhabit this even-more-impressive Middle Earth. Indeed, the question of how exactly the team of screenwriters would divide the simpler, more straight-forward and far shorter story of The Hobbit into three epic films is one that has made fans and critics apprehensive about the project for quite some time. To accomplish this, the writers have drawn from Tolkien’s appendices written for The Lord of the Rings to add characterization and back story, as well as scenes only alluded to or hinted at in the original Hobbit text, and it all works, for the most part. The film’s plot moves along at a brisk pace, and that’s a very good thing considering its 169-minute running time. The tone is lighter here, and the action a little more cartoony than it was in the earlier films, as it should be, as The Hobbit originally was a children’s book. There are a few moments when you might feel things start to drag or might feel the weight of too much information being conveyed through exposition, but those also happen to be moments made enjoyable by the appearance of characters from the original trilogy and the actors who originally portrayed them. If you’re a fan of the original films, naturally you’ll be inclined to forgive those slowdowns for the opportunity to spend some time once again with Gandalf, Lord Elrond (Hugo Weaving), Lady Galadriel (Cate Blanchett), Frodo (Elijah Wood), and even Saruman the White (Christopher Lee).
As for the new characters and cast, they are a delight, one and all, but two are worthy of special mention. In a performance reminiscent of Ewan Macgregor channeling Sir Alec Guinness to portray Obi-Wan Kenobi in the Star Wars prequels, Martin Freeman convincingly draws on Sir Ian Holm’s portrayal of the elder Bilbo in The Lord of the Rings to bring young Bilbo to life, and the resemblance is nothing short of uncanny. But Freeman is given the additional task of making Bilbo lovable and sympathetic as a bumbling, hapless hobbit who finds his courage and his conviction while in the company of rugged warriors who question his very worth. It’s Freeman’s job to make audiences see what wise Gandalf sees from the start, that this most unassuming of hobbits has within him strength and compassion of which he isn’t even aware, that Bilbo’s worthy of our admiration, and he does his job very well.
The other major cast standout is actor Richard Armitage, playing somber and burdened Thorin Oakenshield. Armitage, a veteran of British TV and stage work, is mesmerizing as Thorin — he wears the weight of his obligations to his fellow dwarves as their King, as well as his distrust of elves and hatred of orcs, on his shoulders and in his intense dark eyes. He stands taller than the other dwarves in every sense, to the point where sometimes its easy to forget that he’s a dwarf at all. And yet even at his most humorless, haughty and stubborn, Armitage keeps Thorin a sympathetic, immediate figure. You know he has much to learn if he’s to become a real leader for his people, and it’s Armitage’s performance that makes you care whether or not Thorin fulfills his potential.
It’s far too early to call The Hobbit a masterpiece on the order of Jackson’s original trilogy — after all, there are still two more films to go. But this first chapter is a very encouraging start: for LoTR fans, it will feel like a long-overdue homecoming. and for neophytes and casual audiences, its a story and a world that you’ll want to return to next year to find out what happens next.
Score: 4.5 out of 5
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Starring Ian McKellen, Martin Freeman, Richard Armitage, James Nesbitt, Ken Stott, with Cate Blanchett, Ian Holm, Christopher Lee, Hugo Weaving, Elijah Wood, and Andy Serkis as Gollum. Directed by Peter Jackson.
Running Time: 169 minutes
PG-13 for extended sequences of intense fantasy action violence, and frightening images.