The Hobbit – A Totally Expected Awesome Movie

“In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.”  Whenever I hear that phrase, I hear it in my father’s voice.  My father and I don’t always see eye to eye on things, but one thing we’ve always agreed upon was our love of fantasy.  He pushed books into my hands at a young age, and often told me the story of how he got into fantasy – he found the Lord of the Rings trilogy abandoned in a hotel room in the ‘60s.  When we got a laserdisc player in the ’80s, the Rankin and Bass Hobbit cartoon was the first movie he bought for it.  I must have watched that movie at least 4 times a week.  And anytime I was watching it when my father was home, he would look at the screen and say, “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.”

Monday night I watched “An Unexpected Journey”, the first part of Peter Jackson’s latest epic Tolkien trilogy.  It was, in many ways, the movie I’ve been waiting for since I was five and listening to Glenn Yarbrough warble about the Greatest Adventure lying ahead.  And much like if the movie had come out when I WAS five, I entered the theatre without using the bathroom and sat through the entire feature having to piss like a racehorse.  (Why in the hell does a racehorse have to piss bad enough that we use it as an expression?)  It speaks volumes to Peter Jackson’s facility with the source material that I didn’t get up and leave the theatre during the show – it’s a rare movie that holds me so rapt I forget about the possibility of bowel rupture.  It also speaks volumes about the construction of the IMAX theatre I was in, where I was frightened that if I stood in the dark I would lose my balance and plunge to my death somewhere far below in the rows of cloaked nerds.  (Actually I was sadly disappointed – no one cosplayed at the show I attended.)

Jackson returns us to a Middle-Earth shining with the remarkable vibrancy he showed in the Lord of the Rings trilogy.  In the Shire the green is just a little greener, the sun is just a little warmer, and you can feel the simple serenity of life bleed off of the screen.  It makes you want to be in the Shire, to shrug away the meaningless worries about bills and scratches on your car, and to live without the need for worry.  Of course, that same sense of imagination turned into reality is preserved when we leave the Shire, so that every time we see an old ruin or webbed up forest, we want to shout, “Oh, do NOT fucking go in there!”

When I was watching the film, something about it struck me as familiar.  Not because I’d seen it before, but because I could remember once seeing EVERYTHING in the world like it was from Middle-Earth.  The movie I was watching on the screen might well have been ripped out of my mind’s eye when I was watching that old cartoon with my father.  And in this, I have to say that the film was a complete success.  The Hobbit is first and foremost a children’s story.  The enchantment Jackson weaves with the film is more powerful than any conjurer of cheap tricks (AKA Michael Bay) would be able to muster – Jackson doesn’t just bring the book to life;  he makes you a child again so you can truly enjoy it.  And I’ll always thank him for giving me the opportunity, if only for three brief hours, to feel close to my father again.

Pros:

Martin Freeman – He is an amazing Bilbo Baggins.  He conveys just the right amount of fear and fussiness mixed with a normal person’s Doing the Right Thing.

Richard Armitage – He’s equally amazing as Thorin Oakenshield.  It’s hard to make a dwarf look noble, but he pulls it off in spades.

Rivendell – We get more Rivendell in the Hobbit, from wider angles, and it’s fantastic.

Badass Dwarves – There’s some redemption in the Hobbit for Gimli being turned into comic relief in the Lord of the Rings trilogy.  Every one of the dwarves is a badass.

Smaug – We only get a few glimpses of Smaug, but . . . yesssssssss.

Bumbling Gandalf – We get Gandalf the Grey, bumbling wizard of modest means in the Hobbit, instead of Gandalf Jesus.  He’s a much more interesting character than Saruman 2: Electric Boogaloo.

The White Council – Christopher Lee, Hugo Weaving, and Cate Blanchett turn in excellent performances in this scene that was offscreen in the novel.

Silmarillion and LotR inclusions – There are a bunch of references and inclusions from both the Silmarillion and LotR that help flesh out the Hobbit as part of Middle-Earth and not a standalone adventure tale like the novel reads.

The Misty Mountain Hop – The dwarf song about leaving their home is amazing.

All The Feels – The scene where Bilbo promises to help the dwarves reclaim Erebor was stirring.

Cons:

A Little Too Long – The film felt a bit too long for it’s material.  There wasn’t any scene in particular I’d cut (though the inclusion of the giants fighting was a bit odd), it was more that each scene went on a few seconds more than it should have.

Overly Dramatic – Richard Armitage carries the weight of dwarven nobility all on his own.  We didn’t need multiple slow motion scenes of him shaking his flowing locks while dramatic music played in the background.

Too Much LotR Feel – Sometimes they tried a bit too hard to insert darkness into the movie.  The Lord of the Rings is a dark story about war.  The Hobbit (at least the portion which An Unexpected Journey covers) is an adventure tale about leaving home.  It’s supposed to be much brighter than LotR, and the super dark scenes rang a little false.

Bad 3d Blurring – I saw it in 3d, and anytime the camera moved quickly, the whole screen became an indistinguishable blur.

How in the Fuck are they getting 3 more movies? – The film ended at about the halfway point in the Hobbit. I have no idea what material they’re going to come up with to fill out two more three hour movies.

All in all, the Hobbit – An Unexpected Journey is a worthy entry in the series.  It’s probably the second best fantasy this year to feature a halfling in a starring role.

I’m excited for the next one, and by that, I mean fuck you Peter Jackson for making me wait.