The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Review

Lord of the Rings fans have been waiting for The Hobbit to come to the big screen ever since Return of the King hit theaters and ended one of the greatest trilogies in film history.  What they likely didn't expect was that the slimmer, more light-hearted prequel would become a trilogy of its own, drawing both from Tolkien's kid-friendly novel and appendices filling in the story's blanks and setting the stage for Frodo's quest to destroy the One Ring.  Even when The Hobbit was set to be split into only two movies (following similar moves for the Harry Potter and Twilight finales), some fans - myself included - were wary.  Each Lord of the Rings chapter beautifully captured the essence and plot of its source material, with each scene adding import, context, and texture to the larger tale being told across the three films collectively.  How could a shorter, lighter work inspire two films on its own?  When it was announced earlier this year that The Hobbit was due to become three movies, it was hard to read as anything more than a cash-grab by Warner Bros., looking for a new golden franchise now that The Dark Knight and Harry Potter franchises had come to an end.

I'm sad to say that, based on An Unexpected Journey, the first entry in The Hobbit trilogy, it seems that these fears may have been justified.  Peter Jackson is looking at the forest but missing the trees; An Unexpected Journey, taken on its own, is a bloated, rather joyless adventure that feels less like a complete film and more like a prologue to a Lord of the Rings prequel.  The film is so concerned with packing in details that barely add to the context of The Hobbit's story, and rather look forward to the events of Lord of the Rings.  The result is a lot of hollow fan service and echoed nostalgia.  This is a film for Tolkien purists, but there really isn't a reason for such a film to exist.

Before fanboys start chucking fruit like dwarves toss dirty dishes, allow me to explain.  If I wanted an exhaustive, meticulous history of Middle-earth, including the woodland adventures of Radagast the Brown, the rise of the Necromancer, and the battle for Moria, I would delve deeper into Tolkien's writings.  Tolkien was incredibly detailed in his creation of Middle-earth, crafting epic histories and entire languages, writing songs, and delving into backstories and family trees for seemingly insignificant characters.  It's the sort of stuff that works well in literature.  For those who are interested in a well-told story, they can stick to The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.  For those who want more, they can read The Silmarillion, The Children of Hurin, and the appendices that Tolkien took the time to craft.

Instead of focusing on the dwarves' journey to reclaim the Lonely Mountain from the villainous Smaug, The Hobbit goes off on numerous tangents, many of which add little or nothing to the main narrative thrust, which is barely even the film's main narrative thrust because of all the tangents.  If Jackson saw fit to cut Tom Bombadil from The Fellowship of the Ring, why does he insist on making Radagast (Sylvester McCoy) a prominent supporting character in An Unexpected Journey?  His pooped-on face, rabbit-drawn sleigh, and goofy facial expressions push him past the realm of whimsical children's story character and into the realm of Jar-Jar Binks-esque embarrassment.  When Radagast's sleigh is chased by Wargs, it's one of the worst set pieces Jackson has yet staged, which is saying something when one considers the ever-more-bloated King Kong.

Sadly, many of the set pieces in An Unexpected Journey fall flat in such a way.  The action scenes rarely compare to the most epic encounters in the Lord of the Rings movies, though the showdown with the goblins beneath the Misty Mountains is a good bit of action-packed fun (I love how diverse the dwarves' weapons are), but other encounters with orcs and goblins are somewhat sabotaged by the chief villain, Azog, being a CG creation, rather than being played by an actor in make-up.  The biggest culprit is the "thunder battle" between the rock giants, which, thanks especially to the 48 fps technology (which I'll get to), feels like an adaptation of Shadow of the Colossus, and doesn't add much excitement of tension to the perilous trek over the rain-soaked cliffs.

The film comes to life, however, when Gollum (Andy Serkis) enters for the beloved "Riddles in the Dark" scene.  Serkis has always delivered incredible work in the role, and this is no exception.  With more sophisticated technology, Serkis's performance is translated to a greater degree than ever before, giving Gollum a range of expression unrivaled by any other motion-capture performance.  Gollum is only in the film for fifteen minutes or so, but in that time, Serkis provides comic relief with a sinister edge and paints Gollum as a surprisingly sympathetic, dynamic character.  It's a masterful performance, and one that will sadly be denied the Oscar attention it so deserves, as has always been the case with such work.

The rest of the cast is similarly good, with Richard Armitage standing out among the newcomers to the franchise as Thorin Oakenshield, the leader of the dwarves.  Armitage mainly exudes toughness and gruffness, but he rounds Thorin out with a subtle homesickness and a kingly posture, making him a memorable character.  The rest of the dwarves are a bit hard to keep straight, though each gets his chance to show off his physical prowess or comedic timing; it's a merry band, even if they aren't as differentiated as the members of the Fellowship.

Martin Freeman, already a geek icon for his roles in The Office and Sherlock, is a perfect Bilbo: genial, unassuming, timid, but with wells of courage somewhere within.  Freeman plays his role less earnestly than Elijah Wood played Frodo, and it works to cancel out some of the silliness that sometimes bubbles over in An Unexpected Journey.  He still manages to get plenty of laughs with his impeccable facial expressions and line delivery, and he pulls off the more emotional, inspirational moments with ease.

Plenty of familiar faces return too, including Wood, Ian Holm, Ian McKellen, Cate Blanchett, Christopher Lee, and Hugo Weaving.  While it's great to see these characters again, and some of them are obviously central to the plot, their appearance is also part of one of An Unexpected Journey's chief problems.  Rather than carving its own identity and thus creating its own sources of nostalgia, The Hobbit relies too heavily on pre-established nostalgia to make the fanboys swoon.  The film weaves certain scenes into the Lord of the Rings trilogy, such as when Frodo runs off to greet Gandalf before Bilbo's party, or a shot of Gollum that echoes out first glimpse of the character in Fellowship of the Ring's prologue.  These are fun touches, as is Gandalf intoning lyrics from Pippin's song in Return of the King, but is also takes viewers out of the moment as they recall Lord of the Rings, which is a disservice to An Unexpected Journey, as it can't compare with that trio of masterpieces.

Much of the discussion surrounding The Hobbit has been the "upgrade" to 48 fps (frames per second).  While a typical movie is projected in 24 fps, The Hobbit doubles it, meaning the viewer is seeing twice as many frames per second, getting lots more visual information than he or she is used to.  The result is striking, sometimes beautiful, and mostly off-putting.  It takes one's eyes time to adjust, so the opening shots of Bilbo in Bag End appear sped-up, but the adjustment happens fairly quickly, which barely helps with the film's appearance.

As one would expect, the art direction, costuming, and make-up on display in The Hobbit are top-notch, with much of the Lord of the Rings team reuniting to bring the same attention to detail and fantastical flourishes to the film that fans of Middle-earth expect.  With the startling clarity of 48 fps, though, things appear too real; especially in outdoor, daylight scenes, it's so obvious you're watching actors on a set, it's disconcerting.  It's a decidedly un-cinematic aesthetic, without the filmic quality one expects.  The result has been likened to soap operas, BBC productions, and live television, all of which are accurate, but even with these comparisons in mind before going into the movie, I was still unprepared for how strange it would be to see a movie in 48 fps.

One of the major problems with the technology is the effect on the film's CGI.  Middle-earth has been home to some of the most gorgeous, memorable CGI characters and creatures in film history, and have fit seamlessly into the world of the films.  In 48 fps, the actual actors look so real, so clear, that the CGI creations becomes very obviously not real, and start to look like they were taken out of a video game (perhaps not surprising, as most current-generation video games run at 60 fps).  So, when the dwarves are grappling with goblins, it looks ridiculous.  Azog looks plastic next to his henchmen, who are played by actors in make-up.  And the Radagast chase scene is reduced to looking like something out of a Twilight movie.  Gollum comes out the least scathed by the contrast, perhaps because he and Bilbo don't do much touching, but even seeing the characters side-by-side calls the viewer's attention to the fact that Gollum is an artificial being.  In 48 fps, it's hard to forget that the film is a work of artifice.  It's an intriguing effect, but an unwelcome one, as most viewers prefer to be immersed in a movie, rather than being constantly reminded that they're watching one (if you don't belong to this category, see Funny Games).

While I expected the visuals to be jarring in 48 fps, I didn't anticipate the effect on the film's sound.  With the actors looking so present, the film's diegetic sound becomes very immediate, as though the characters are talking from somewhere in the same room as you.  It's obviously a trick of the senses, but it creates a weird space in which the film's non-diegetic sound exists; Howard Shore's wonderful score seems out of place, because in what real world does music just start playing to accompany the action?  It's another strange side-effect of Middle-earth looking like an actual place, though it, too, fades as one gets used to the framerate.

While 48 fps is an interesting experiment, and one that film enthusiasts ought to experience (preferably after seeing An Unexpected Journey at normal speed, and assuming one likes it enough to see it again), but it's hard to imagine it becoming a fixture of cinema in the future.  It's too jarring and strange, though this is obviously an early example of it.  I have to wonder if post-production work could be done to make a film in 48 fps still look like a film while still retaining the clarity and smoothness of the framerate, or if the two are mutually exclusive.  Certain scenes looked stunningly beautiful and even cinematic, but those were few and far between.  (The highlight may be the appearance of water.  It's seriously so pretty.)

While The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey disappoints as a stand-alone film and doesn't thrill as an example of new technology, I still experienced an emotional swell to be back in Peter Jackson's Middle-earth.  I'm excited to see the film again in 24 fps 2-D, so I can better appreciated the CGI and give the story a second go.  As it is, the film feels like a warm-up to a much more exciting tale, and I can't wait to go there, and back again.