Firstly, the version I saw of The Hobbit was in 2D and ran at 24 fps (frames per second), I
think, not the 3D version which runs at 48 fps to which a lot of people have
been complaining out, mainly how it shows up some of the prosthetics and cheapens
the grand images that are part of the film and the Middle Earth series as a
whole.
But back to the film that I saw, it is one that is caught
between the visual ideas of both of it’s directors, Guillermo Del Toro and
Peter Jackson, Del Toro initially signed on to work on The Hobbit films, then departed during pre-production because of
delays and financing problems. Jackson then took over as director, as a result
it is clear to see the influences of both, the creatures it would seem have
come straight from one of Del Toro’s notebooks, the most obvious being the
Goblin King and his close subjects. Whereas the world is for the most part
Jacksons Middle Earth, with a few exceptions as well, such as the troll camp
and Rhadaghast, his home and his sleigh, but I will say no more, look like they
have come out of some child friendly Pan’s
Labyrinth.
The story itself is one of relative simplicity, as Gandalf
brings Bilbo Baggins into the company of 13 dwarves led by Thorin Oakenshield,
to help them regain their former home of Erebor. The book the novel is based on
is nowhere near as large in scale as The
Lord of the Rings trilogy, so how they are planning on stretching out The Hobbit into three films is a
mystery. The first part is severely padded with invented moments, not a
negative aspect as they are generally done well here, but also moments that
seem to serve Lord of the Rings, the
few of these that there are, tend to relate to Sauron in a guarded way or
Saruman.
The true strength of the film, as with others from the
eventual six film series, is in the performances, this time led by Martin
Freeman as Bilbo Baggins, who plays it perfectly. The highest praise I can give
him is that there is no other actor I can imagine playing Bilbo now. In one
film he portrays are more interesting leading Hobbit than Frodo and Sam were as
a collective in the other films. Sir Ian McKellen, as always is superb as
Gandalf, as are the rest of the returning actors.
The biggest surprise was Richard Armitage as Thorin, who
plays the king without as throne in a really interesting way, he almost
completely ignores trying to be at all sympathetic, instead choosing the route
of the vengeful child, who wants revenge for the death of his family as well as
to return his people to their home.
The dwarves in this film have an interesting but also
jarring look about them, which makes it hard to imagine that they are in anyway
the same race that Gimli belonged to. In The
Hobbit, they range from handsome and beardless to cartoon-esque or with
strange facial features that doesn’t fit with the rest of the film. The actors
though do shine through this impediment and bring each one to life with the
varying amount of screen time and dialogue, mimicking what they did with the
fellowship in The Fellowship of the Ring.
As with the other Middle Earth films, The Hobbit has a hefty run time, roughly 2hrs and 45 mins, which in
and of itself isn’t a problem, the films in the series were just as long, if
not longer but did not drag, The Dark
Knight Rises another film released this year has an almost identical run
time, but didn’t feel it’s length. The
Hobbit, unfortunately does. At times it is flat out painful, especially
early on, the sequence in bag end, which feels like half an hour, goes on and
on and on. Quite easily, this film could have lost 15 to 20 minutes, which
would have helped the film later on, as by the time the ‘riddles in the dark’
sequence starts with Gollum, I was no longer as interested or engaged as I should
have been, as this section of the film is easily it’s strongest and was
something that really helps to pick the film up for it’s climax.
Despite what I have said, The Hobbit isn’t a bad film, it is saved by its performances and
some of its set pieces, mostly the ones close to the end of the film, but it
sags under it’s only length. Compared to The
Fellowship of the Ring (The film easiest to compare it to) it falls short,
it lacks the pacing and energy of that first film.
Hopefully the second film in this trilogy will learn from
the mistakes of this one and move with more direction and purpose, a change of
subtitle for the next one wouldn’t be the worst thing either.
