The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012)

Slightly overlong but well worth the trip.

When it was rumored earlier this year that Peter Jackson would be adding a third movie to his adaptation of The Hobbit, I was doubtful. If he could fit a one-thousand page narrative into three movies, surely he could do three-hundred pages in two. Jackson was, of course, also adding some material from what Star Wars fans would call the expanded universe, which is to say the numerous story-adjacent texts that flesh out things behind the scenes. Though mention is made of 'the Necromancer' in the original novel, we don't spend any time there, yet Gandalf does disappear for a time to take care of his wizard business. From author Tolkein's other histories, however, we see the connection between the Necromancer and Sauron, the villain of The Lord of the Rings. As such, it makes a lot of sense that this is territory Jackson and company would want to explore, but is it enough to justify a further three hours or would it largely be padding to line the pockets of the myriad of companies involved? Further, how was the film's new HFR (high frame rate) 3D technology?

But, first, let's talk about next year's Star Trek Into Darkness. I attended an IMAX 3D show of The Hobbit specifically so I could see the first nine minutes of the upcoming Star Trek film. Though an increasing number of films have been embracing IMAX of late, I had not attended a showing until last month, when I saw Skyfall in IMAX. Despite the additional cost, I must say I was very impressed with the experience. Besides the larger format of the screen, the balance/fine-tuning of picture and sound was phenomenal. I sought out a de-facto IMAX theatre, though, not one of the many 'converted' theatres cropping up all over. With the growing popularity of the IMAX format, a lot of multiplexes are simply 'converting' one of their preexisting theatres for IMAX. I say 'converting', however, as true IMAX is intended to be viewed from a specific, optimal distance which the experience is balanced for. Unfortunately, these 'converted' locations largely end up as nothing more than a slightly larger screen accompanied by a $4 surcharge. So, when presented with another reason to go to the IMAX, I hoped to return to the same theatre however, as I soon discovered, only specific venues would have the Trek footage - specifically, IMAX digital locations, ie largely the 'converted' theatres. The movie was so long already that the additional footage made things untenable for the traditional IMAX locations.

Either way, the footage was definitely a lot of fun, and it was great to see those characters back on the big screen once more. The nine minutes opens with two parents visiting their terminally ill child. The father, played by Doctor Who's Noel Clarke, is visited by John Harrison (Benedict Cumberbatch), a man claiming to be the only hope for saving the child's life. Then we cut to another planet, in media res, where Kirk (Chris Pine) and Dr. McCoy (Karl Urban) are fleeing from the natives, while a nearby volcano threatens to erupt. Meanwhile, Spock (Zachary Quinto), Uhura (Zoe Saldana), and Sulu (John Cho), fly overhead in a shuttle, trying to complete their mission before it's too late. Inevitably, before long, Spock finds himself in the center of the volcano, from where the crew has no way to retrieve him, which of course is where the preview ends - but not before Spock suggests they leave him, characteristically citing that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. The sneak peak goes far not to give anything away about the film's larger plot (who is the mysterious Harrison, and does he have the powers he implies?), while still packing the action-punch we saw in the previous installment. While certainly worthwhile, I don't know if it's worth the extra expense just to see the additional footage. On the other hand, if you're already thinking about seeing the film in IMAX, be sure and check this list for participating theatres in your state.

Alright, now let's finally talk about The Hobbit. I saw the film twice: once in IMAX 3D and once in HFR 3D. First, let me lead off by saying that I'm not a huge fan of 3D movies, though admittedly it's growing on me. In fact, though I had always intended to see the film in HFR 3D (to see what the technology was like), the only reason I saw it in IMAX 3D was for the additional Star Trek footage, otherwise I would have definitely seen it in 2D. After some great trailers for next year's films (which included Star Trek Into Darkness, Jack the Giant Slayer, Oz the Great and Powerful, and Man of Steel), and after getting past the plumes of smoke to my right, from the punk with the electronic cigarette, not to mention the large black man to the left of me that spent the first few minutes dodging the 3D effects for the amusement of his girlfriend, followed by what I can only assume was some vital, life-saving text-messaging on his part through the middle of the film, I was off to Middle Earth once more.

The film begins with a prologue, depicting the ancient dwarven home of Erebor and its eventual fall to the dragon Smaug. All this is told to us by Bilbo Baggins (Ian Holm), as he writes it all in a book for his nephew Frodo (Elijah Wood). Now notice an issue up front, I'm already talking about characters from another film. This film is supposed to take place sixty years previous, and indeed it does. However, its telling is framed within The Lord of the Rings: the Fellowship of the Ring (2001), and much of its early attention is focused there, as Bilbo prepares for his birthday party and complains about his less desirable relations. Eventually, we do make the jump and hop back six decades to the actual story we're here to see. A much younger Bilbo (Martin Freeman), is visited by the wizard Gandalf (Sir Ian McKellen), who is looking to recruit him for an adventure. Of course hobbits, such as Mr. Baggins, are notoriously opposed to such things. However, once he's made up his mind, a wizard is most stubborn indeed. As such, a little later, dwarves start showing up at Bilbo's house for dinner and there's not much he can do to stop them. They make quite a mess and he's most annoyed about the whole thing. Eventually Gandalf himself shows up, followed eventually by Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitage), the leader of the dwarves.

At this point, everyone settles down to business and plans are made. The dwarves (thirteen in all) intend to retake Erebor, and they're looking for a burglar to help them. Gandalf has submitted Bilbo as such. Eventually, through much cajoling on the part of the wizard, Bilbo is convinced to come when the party sets out the next day. Along the way, everyone gets into many adventures, fighting trolls, orcs, goblins and more. Through it all, Bilbo does a lot of soul-searching about whether he deserves - or even wants to be - there and tries to prove himself to all assembled. Finally, deep within the Misty Mountains, Biblo has an encounter with a creature called Gollum (Andy Serkis) that will forever alter not only his own life but the future of Middle Earth forever. Further, Thorin encounters an ancient adversary he thought long dead that will stop at nothing to see him meet the same fate. Rounding out the company of dwarves are Graham McTavish, Ken Stott, Aidan Turner,  Dean O'Glorman, Mark Hadlow, Jed Brophy, Adam Brown, John Callen, Petter Hambleton, William Kircher, James Nesbitt, and Stephen Hunter. Reprising their roles from the The Lord of the Rings are Cate Blanchett as Galadriel, Hugo Weaving as Elrond, and Christopher Lee as Saruman the White.

Myself, I'm a big fan of dwarves and The Hobbit is one of my favorite books. Correspondingly, I have an appropriate hatred of the elves, for some reasons which, bordering on future spoilers, I won't include here. Either way, throughout the whole Lord of the Rings film trilogy, I felt like they were going out of their way to make the elves seem cool. However, at least in the books, the elves are just as flawed as everyone else. In the The Two Towers, at the battle of Helm's Deep, no elves show up to save the day. They're too concerned with themselves. Thus, I was worried the elves would receive similar treatment in The Hobbit. Thankfully, there's a great scene at the beginning where the elven forces have a chance to step in and help the dwarves against Smaug but do nothing, setting the stage for the animosity between the two races. Making the dwarves bigots and the elves blameless would undermine a lot of what's to come. It remains to be seen if this thread will continue throughout the other two films, but I hope it will, as it's central to the story. In the LOTR, the dwarf Gimli was largely used to comedic effect, which worked well, however I was concerned (with thirteen dwarves) things would get out of hand. However, I think the filmmakers struck a great balance with the characters in this movie.

There are so many actors, and characters, it's hard to single out a few. Martin Freeman is great as Bilbo, in fact I couldn't imagine him being played by anyone else. Surely Ian Holm was too old to portray the younger character for the entire film. However, once Freeman was suggested for the part, based on his performance in the BBC's Sherlock, he seemed like the obvious choice. In fact, there couldn't be anyone better. However, due to conflicts with filming Sherlock, it looked like he wouldn't be able to accept. But Peter Jackson moved the whole filming schedule to accommodate him, and we're so lucky he did. Another point of concern was how they'd handle a movie with, effectively, fifteen main characters. But I think they did so admirably, focusing on a few dwarves up front, the charming yet wise Balin (Stott) and his gruff brother Dwalin (McTavish) stand out to me personally, as does Bofur (Nesbitt), who forms a friendship with Bilbo early on (and of course Thorin). Fíli (O'Gorman) and Kíli (Turner) are more important later in the story, so I trust we'll come to know them (as well as the others) better in the subsequent installments.

Is Kíli supposed to be a dwarf or Aragorn II?

My one complaint about the dwarves themselves is that it feels like the appearance of a few, such as Thorin or Kíli, have been tweaked for marketing purposes - they share none of the exaggerated features of the rest, and their beards are comparatively almost nonexistent. This is not to say that there can't be variety in dwarves, as with anything else, however given the way that everyone else is presented, it stands out (plus, you're telling me that the dwarven prince/king doesn't have the most robust beard of all? Come on!). And, of course, it's great to see McKellen and Lee return. Yes, they look a little worse for wear, ten years later down the road, as does Ian Holm, but I can deal with it to have them in the film. Further, as with LotR, I love the sense of scale in this movie. There's a great bit at the beginning where Bilbo's sitting down to eat this reasonably large fish. When Dwalin busts in (and subsequently eats the it) the fish is tiny compared to him. What's great is that they achieve many of these scale effects through practical means, such as the use of forced-perspective (optical illusions based on the relative position of the actors and size/alignment of the props) and doubles, rather than computers.

Admittedly, there were things that annoyed me the first time I saw this film, based on my own preconceptions, primarily from reading the book. However, this is why I say one should always see such a film a second time. For me this is true with any hyped-up film you feel vaguely disappointed with upon seeing initially. And, in fact, I really enjoyed the film on the second viewing. Yet a few issues remain, the primary one being that the film is slightly overlong. Honestly, I think without the prologue, things would have been just right. Aside from feeling like the inclusion of LOTR Bilbo/Frodo at the film's start was largely fanservice, a lot of redundancy was created in the process, leading to the beginning of the film felling very slow. The prologue covers a lot of information, however much of this is told to us a second time, when presented to Bilbo by the dwarves. Though it is nice to see all the places that are being talked about as part of the prologue, I personally feel like the conversation with Bilbo is much more effective at relating the same information. First, it works on the imagination: we hear about all these fantastic places and wonder what they're like, we want to see them, which invests us in the story. Second, we experience things from Bilbo/the dwarves point of view, which not only adds character but invests us in them. Having both present, in my opinion, is redundant, unnecessary, and why many feel the film is slow to get underway.

For some proof, the second time I saw the film, I saw it with my father, who arrived about half an hour after the film had begun: he didn't feel like he had missed anything. Unfortunately, he missed the classic arrival of the dwarves, which I filled him in on later, but didn't mourn the prologue one bit. In general, I felt like there was more exposition in this film than LOTR and it suffers accordingly. Leaving a little mystery (within reason of course, you don't want to confuse anyone) engages the audience. Too much exposition only bores them. For example, do we really need an Orc point of view occasionally? Do they really need subtitles/who cares what they're saying? Might it be more interesting (not to mention put us in the same head space as the dwarves) to let us speculate about that for a little bit longer?

There's a lot more I could say, for instance, one of the things I was initially concerned about was the new material they'd be adding but, thus far, I think it turned out great. The council scene in the second half is one of the best written parts in the film, and really sets the stage for the future. However, I've already said quite a lot, so I'll forgo telling you my opinions about Azog so I can focus on the HFR 3D for a little bit before I'm done. Normal film is displayed at a rate of 24 frames per second (FPS), while television is displayed at a rate of 30. Either way, when things move fast, a slight 'ghosting' effect is created, where objects will be slightly blurry/appear to be in two places at once. This is more pronounced in film, since there are less frames. If you freeze-frame a movie when a lot of movement is going on, you'll see what I'm talking about. When frame rates were standardized for sound back in the 1920s, 24 FPS was chosen for film as it was the very lowest they could go (so as to save on film) while still maintaining the illusion of motion. We've become accustomed to this, over the years, and the frame rate of film is one of the things that contributes to its 'look' versus television. However, with 3D, this 'ghosting' inherent with low frame rates disrupts the 3D effect and makes everything somewhat muddy. Next time you see a film in 3D, try closing one eye and you'll see the picture is much sharper. With HFR 3D, which doubles the normal frame rate to 48 FPS, everything is much clearer.

At first, since it's not what you're used to, your brain doesn't know how to react. At the beginning of the film, my brain treated the extra frames as if everything was sped up, however you do get used to it eventually - it took around 20 minutes/half an hour for me personally. It's especially obvious when there's lots of movement, particularly battle scenes and camerawork. Granted, it's a little weird at first but once you're acclimated to it, it's quite amazing. Rather than normal 3D, where everything looks vaguely fake, it literally looks like you're watching a play, rather than a movie. Some people have complained that, with this added reality, some of the film magic (makeup, effects, CGI) looks bad, however I for one thought everything looked great, be it the 3D characters or the environment. My one complaint was during one scene where it was raining, though the characters were wet, you could tell that none of the rain was landing on them, which seemed artificial. However, overall, I'd say it was a superior experience. As I said earlier, I don't often see films in 3D, however if HFR continues to be offered, I will seriously consider it. True, the filmmakers might have to wield some of their tricks more effectively but, as with any new technology, I expect they'll only get better with time. Better still, a friend of mine that always gets headaches at 3D movies found that the high frame rate solved the issue. Overall, this is a technology I'm now very excited about now, and I look forward to seeing what they do with it in the future. It takes a little getting used to, but having seen it once, I wouldn't want to see a 3D film any other way.

In the end, I really enjoyed this movie. It wasn't what I was expecting necessarily, and does feel sometimes like it's trying too hard to be Lord of the Rings rather than itself, but overall it's a good film. It's a little long and there's too much exposition at times, but there's a lot of charm to be found within, and a lot of humor. Plus, if you're a fan of 3D, HFR really takes things to another level. I give this film a 4.25/5.