OVP: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012)

Film: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Stars: Martin Freeman, Ian McKellen, Richard Armitage, Aidan Turner, Elijah Wood, Cate Blanchett, Christopher Lee, Andy Serkis, Sylvester McCoy
Director: Peter Jackson
Oscar History: 3 nominations (Art Direction, Visual Effects, Makeup)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 5/5 stars

As reviewers, we cannot entirely shield ourselves from our personal favorites,  As I mentioned a few weeks ago when I reviewed Breaking Dawn, I am a biased fan of the Twilight films, and that may have skewed me a bit.  However, I can say that, though The Lord of the Rings as a 10-hour epic may be my favorite movie (depending on what day you ask me), I was looking forward to The Hobbit with a bit of dread.  The trailers (the few I had seen) had me a bit nervous-lighter tone is not a direction I care to venture, and unlike the original trilogy, I had read The Hobbit as a kid of about thirteen, and so I knew there wasn't a lot to go on in the film, and to stretch it over three films for nearly ten hours seemed a bit daring, and possibly (well, certainly) a bit greed-induced, potentially at the cost of artistic credence.  Images of The Phantom Menace danced in my head, and they had me shivering with cinematic fear.

I will now admit, however, that I was thankfully and mercifully wrong, as I adored the movie.  It's not the same film as The Lord of the Rings, but that's not necessarily due to a lack of quality, but due to the aforementioned change in tone.  The film is dealing with a slightly less noble pursuit.  I'm going to try desperately throughout this review not to compare it to the book (partially because it's been a few years since I was thirteen and it's a little fuzzy at this point), as I'm usually a solid fan of changing the plot of a book in order to fit it onto the big screen, and one of the best examples of that is the change in the pursuit of the dwarves.  In the book, if I recall correctly, they are simply after the mountain of treasure that Smaug is guarding, rather than the noble pursuit of reclaiming their kingdom.  Here, that makes their quest a bit easier to buy into, and gives the film some depth that is well-needed.

Even with that plot alteration, it can't quite hit the "end-of-the-world" heaviness that, say, The Return of the King manages to encompass since there they are fighting a true, complete evil that is set to destroy all of Middle Earth, and so the film cannot quite hit those depths.  It certainly doesn't lose its majesty, however.  The film knows how to highlight the natural beauty it perfected in The Lord of the Rings-every single landscape seems to have been plucked from Tolkien's imagination, so perfectly crafted it is (the art direction is sublime in the film, particularly when you note, say Radagast's house and all of its fun little nuances or the agedness of Bilbo's hobbit hole).

Speaking of Radagast, the film also manages to fill in some of the thinness in its plot with clever and delightful diversions such as Radagast and his crazy affinity for mushrooms and hedgehogs.  Some critics may be divided on this (I honestly haven't spent a lot of time reading reviews of the film, though I've heard they are a bit sour on it), but I must confess that I love every single hint and clue that comes up regarding the soon-to-come Lord of the Rings tale.  Radagast seeing Sauron, the Necromancer, and the already shaky allegiance of Saruman to the side of good.  Prequels aren't usually fun because they make everything fit too neatly, but with a story as well-definied as Tolkien's, this works well for Jackson and his co-writers.

I'm not going to spend a lot of time on the plot of the film aside from picking and choosing what I loved, and that's because you're going to see this movie-it's one of those bulletproof sort of films that anyone who is remotely interested in the film is going to head out and see it, and they should-this movie is excellent popcorn fare.  I'm also not going to focus on the entire plot, because this is a long, long movie-coming in just shy of three hours (though it breezes by), there's tons of plot and sideplot to push a review into a novella, and I'm about to start my Christmas travels, so I don't have time to finish a Cliffs Notes version of The Hobbit.

I will, however, note on some of the best and worst parts of the film.  The best parts, almost certainly, hearken back to the first film, and perhaps that's the nostalgia at work.  Every actor seems like they have missed these characters and the grandeur they bring, and so you suddenly see Cate Blanchett or Ian McKellen (every bit as fun as you remembered him in the first film, without quite the confidence he possessed in those movies) or Ian Holm, and your heart swells with pride over what a fun time you once had with them, and are now are about to have with them again.  The film's newer characters (save a heavy-hearted Richard Armitage and a dottering Sylvester McCoy) aren't quite as well defined as they should be, and haven't had the time in our hearts that the older characters have, and so I wasn't quite as drawn in by their plots and had a bit of a difficult time finding defining characteristics for each dwarf.  I will also gripe (just this once) that Aidan Turner, who plays Kili, may be a bit too...beautiful to be playing a dwarf.

I'm also warming to Bilbo, as incarnated by Martin Freeman, as my main protagonist, and I will say that I am closer to loving him than I ever was with Frodo (who sort of gets to be the Luke Skywalker of The Lord of the Rings-the main character, but constantly overshadowed by his more interesting and rootable-for sidekicks).  Though Freeman doesn't get the plum role that Ian Holm did (it's always better and more exciting to be turning evil onscreen than to be the jolly good predecessor), he still finds a voice as the film progresses.  I wish they would have found a bit more time to show his emerging strength (and more animosity with Thorin) so that the final moments where he saves Thorin's life would be a bit more of a payoff, but overall, I enjoyed Freeman's work, and am excited to see where this character goes in the next two films (personally, considering where they are in the plot of the book, I'm truly excited to see what happens in the third film period, as there's not a lot left of the novel if I recall correctly, and certainly not enough to fill two films, but that's a problem for another day and another movie).

Lastly, I want to end with what undoubtedly was everyone's favorite part of this film, the return of Gollum, and the glorious Andy Serkis.  The only disappointing thing about this moment was that it's the only interaction we're guaranteed between the two in this trilogy, and so I was so glad that Jackson gave it its proper due, rather than short-shifting Serkis or trying to string the character through multiple films (at least I'm hoping that's not where they're going with it).  You spend so much time getting to know the human side of Gollum in The Lord of the Rings, it's a nice reminder to the audience what a menacingly evil character he also happens to be.  It takes a lot of directorial and acting skill to make a scene that everyone in the audience knows the ending to (Bilbo will escape with the ring, and both characters will live to see another day, though never to see each other again) thrilling and edge-of-your-seat, but that's what Jackson does here.  The riddle match, the stealing of the ring, and everything about this interaction brings out the best in the movie, and the best in Freeman as an actor.  Serkis's character may be relying on some past tricks, but he still manages to add new depths to a character-look at the glee he showers on Bilbo when he realizes that he'll get to play a game before the kill, and the unnerving way he doesn't address his multiple personalities, which of course he is not truly aware is odd.  It's a tour de force triumph at the end of the film, and worth the ticket price, even on top of an excellent adventure of a movie.

And that's where I'm going to leave it.  I'm positive there are opinions out there of the film, so feel free to share your favorite (or least favorite) parts in the comments.  And though I know I owe everyone a Glee recap (I have seen it, I just haven't written it), if I don't have the time to write it before the holiday, Merry Christmas!