The first in an unexpected trilogy, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey has been made as what seems to be a response to The Lord of the Rings. Peter Jackson has striven to ape the same feel with a new tone. It didn't have to be an improvement, and it is not, but it had to be capable of existing as a complete movie in itself, if not a complete experience - The Fellowship of the Ring is the only one of these movies to thoroughly achieve that. By its end, you will have seem glimmers of the intoxicating brilliance with which Jackson and his team imbued Middle Earth, and these glimmers are lovely, warm, one feels in secure hands. And Jackson's hands are secure with this material, but his head is possessed of an ambition that sends him wayward, and he makes too many unwise decisions. In the moments where he reverts back to recreating the tone of the old trilogy, with Howard Shore's masterful score providing a near-constant blanket of aural richness, The Hobbit is wonderful - thrilling, dramatic, deliciously portentous. Yet, in others, he veers too close to the content of those films, entire scenes which seem totally lacking in original thought, with a lighter touch that renders them paltry. The first hour or two are marred by rather a lot of these, and end up aimless resultantly. Things do pick up, though, and there are several scenes towards the end which ought to prove immensely satisfying to fans of the earlier films, and fans of adventure filmmaking. Visuals are enchanting - 48fps is initially jarring, but it enables tremendous clarity in the images, although it adds little to the less detailed shots, and reduces the cinematic aspect to many also. Acting is mixed - Ian McKellen and Andy Serkis inhabit their roles with gravitas and gusto, respectively, but some of the newcomers are too self-conscious, particularly Aidan Turner and Richard Armitage, who gives an abhorrent performance, pouting and posing like he's in a cheap music video. I don't doubt that there'll be enough material to sustain two more movies, even though this one was stretched pretty thin on the plot front, although I hope they're less reliant on copying their forerunners and more tonally cohesive. Jackson gave us the same movie three times ten years ago. I don't see why he can't do the same again.
Paddy, the only point you make here that I would disagree with -though it's really just a matter of taste- is that the third film in the LOTR trilogy - THE RETURN OF THE KING an emotional film fuled by soaring lyricism and operatic intensity is the best of the three. Oscar got that call correct though no doubt for mostly the wrong reasons. Even the snobby NYFCC went commercial in a rare nod that year for their Best Picture. But that's neither here nor there. I think you've voived here what my expectations are with THE HOBBIT, which is a decent appraisal if not especially enthusasistic. I will be there with my full bood tomorrow (my 15 year-old Sammy is a huge LOTR fan, despire being so afraid of GOLUM as a toddler when he first saw the films in theatres that my wife had to sit with him in the lobby! Ha!) Jackson is facing a lot of nasty backlash, and I admire you handled things here in proper perspective in this excellent piece.
ReplyDelete-Sam Juliano
There's a lot more I wanted to write in that review, but I didn't want to bloat it. Basically, I can qualify almost all of my criticisms of this film with plenty of compliments in the same field, and vice versa. It's a very bitty experience.
ReplyDeleteI didn't actually say that The Fellowship of the Ring is the best of the LOTR trilogy, although I do think it is. And I would argue that The Return of the King is the worst! I watched them all recently, in anticipation of The Hobbit, and couldn't muster up the enthusiasm I once felt for The Return of the King.