With years of behind-the-scenes strife that could fill a novel of its own, J.R.R Tolkien's 1937 literary classic The Hobbit finally makes its way to the big screen in the first installment of the planned trilogy, once again under the watchful eye of the master of Middle-earth, Peter Jackson.
In this prequel to The Lord of the Rings, the tone is set lighter, the plot less taxing on the brain, and although at times darker than expected for a novel aimed at children, the film falls on the tamer side of the solid PG-13 scares and fantasy violence that accompanied the original trilogy.
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey wisely wastes little time in easing back into to the magical world of Middle-earth with familiar faces who welcome the viewer back to The Shire and establish the timelines between the two trilogies. An Unexpected Journey, set sixty years before the events of The Fellowship of the Ring, focuses on the early adventures of Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman) and Gandalf the Grey (Ian McKellen).
There is no mistaking the lavish set and character designs, the grand sweeping landscapes, and the visual effects that are once again successively pushed to their technological limits. Peter Jackson and his brilliant team effortlessly bring us back to the Middle-earth that captivated imaginations on the big screen well over a decade ago. I can't say it outshines its predecessors, since we only get one opportunity to look upon this world for the first time with wide-eyed wonder. As here we are with our fourth installment, the shock and awe grandeur Jackson first unleashed upon fans in 2001 has understandably subsided.
Following a generous prologue, our adventure begins in The Shire with Baggins, the Hobbit in question, who is recruited by Gandalf the Grey (Ian McKellen) to go on that unexpected journey with thirteen dwarfs to reclaim their riches and fallen kingdom of Erebor from the dragon Smaug. It goes without saying the trek is adventurous, treacherous, arduous, and adorned with layers upon layers of big screen CG eye candy. Along the way, we also find out how the One Ring came into his Bilbo's possession, which plays heavily into the central plot of
LOTR.
Freeman as Baggins (the older version played by Ian Holm), truly brings the whimsical heart, charm and spirit to the film. Baggins' Shire-bound innocence is turned upside down as one whose comfort zone does not exist outside of his familiar trappings. Freeman effortlessly takes the audience along for the journey along side the tougher battle ready dwarfs.
Sir Ian McKellen, returning as Gandalf the Grey, now the solid foundation for the entire series, gets to have more fun this time out with the younger version of the wizard who drinks, smokes and jokes with his companions. Several other
LOTR alum (Frodo, Elrond, Galadriel and Saruman), have appearances spread out through the film, who serve as character bridges between the trilogies. Also of note is Richard Armitage, who as the Dwarf Lord Thorin, manages to push forward a true heroic turn that could easily been buried among twelve other similar in stature on-screen Dwarfs.
Highlights are of course seeing the Hobbits' Shire again in all its glory, and a beautiful stop off in the Elves' Rivendell. Middle earth's expanded rogue's gallery here includes Trolls, Orcs, Goblins and Smaug (seen only in scant glimpses) plus a thrilling sequence in the goblin underground lair that will most likely keep you glued to the screen.
With
The Hobbit's
single novel's worth of events expanded over the course of a trilogy (having been originally conceived and filmed as a two-part prequel), to say that the pacing in
An Unexpected Journey is beyond generous shouldn't be surprising (if the near three-hour running time wasn't hint enough). Granted the
LOTR films had both theatrical cuts and extended cuts for DVD (and I felt the extended cuts were better), it is easy to feel that very few passages from the novel have been excised in bringing the book to the big screen. We spend the first hour at the story's starting gate, and doesn't hit a solid rhythm until the last hour.
What is well worth noting for sure is the return of Gollum in a crucial complex scene of mental chess between the pale gangly bi-polar keeper of the powerful enchanted One Ring and Bilbo Baggins. Gollum was a technical achievement to behold in
The Lord of the Rings, and now with a decade's worth of improvement in digital technology, performance capture and another amazing turn by Andy Serkis, prepare to bear witness to a game changing scene for the series. In HFR 3D, the on-screen detail present on Gollum is nothing less than draw dropping.
On that note however, lets get to the technical side of this film, which mainly includes the advanced frame rate Jackson utilized to lens the trilogy and enhance the native 3D experience.
Shot at double the speed than the norm (48 frames per second here rather than 24), the first and foremost result you will notice in the projected presentation is a picture that does not resemble the film look we are accustomed to.
With 48fps, we are presented with a razor sharp image sans the familiar film grain and depth of field aesthetic we typically associate with the movie viewing experience. This impeccable digital resolution resembles hi-def video more than the traditional texture of film stock, resulting in
Journey having an FX-laden soap opera feel rather than one of rich cinematography. The projection can throw your senses into an immediate tizzy, especially with a lavish fantasy setting like this rather than say, a quaint character drama. In addition, shooting the film twice as fast means the perceived normal movement up on the screen is also sped up, making even pedestrian character action seem unnaturally faster and off putting to the senses.
The flip side to this shift in technology is a jaw dropping 3D experience. The typical motion blur associated with fast moving scenes projected in 3D is gloriously eliminated by the higher frame rate, but I can't say it didn't take me at least 25 minutes to retrain my eyes and brain to the advanced presentation. Over a week since I've seen it, I'm still on the fence if the trade-off was worth it. However, if this is the future of film making, then prepare to adjust you expectations, and all the criticisms I have just made may seem silly in ten years time. But if this hyper realism makes the movie experience more like looking through a window with your own eyes rather than through a camera lens, inherent fantasy and escapism elements of sitting in a theater get pushed into the background.
Wisely though, the film will have a limited release in this format, likely to expand on more screens with each successive chapter. Digital projection took a few years to become commonplace in theaters, and this will take time as well.
As the first chapter in a new trilogy,
The Hobbit can be slow going with several scenes that would be better served as DVD extras, and building life or death tension in big action sequences can be tough when you know certain characters live to appear in the later films. Fans hoping for a drastic departure from an established cinematic comfort zone will find
An Unexpected Journey a film that firmly fits back into the world thoroughly previously explored. To minimize distraction, you may want to play it safe and see in 24fps and put off the hyper realism of the HFR 3D for a second viewing.
But in either format, the grand scale, scope, and visually stunning ambition of
The Hobbit can't be denied. This is definitely a must see for fans and delivers when it revisits the familiar sacred ground of the series. But if its not your thing, at nearly three hours and a lighter tone, this return journey won't change your mind regarding magical adventures in Middle-earth.
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey opens in IMAX 3D, RealD 3D, 2D, and HFR 3D in select IMAX theaters on December 14th.
REVIEW RATING: ★★★☆☆
HFR 3D RATING ★★½☆☆☆
Directed By: Peter Jackson
