Where to begin?
Ah, yes. The Hobbit is now in theaters, available for public viewing. I still haven’t quite grasped the fact that I have finally seen Peter Jackson’s highly anticipated follow-up to his beloved (and some, including myself, would say untouchable) fantasy trilogy The Lord of the Rings. Indeed, if I could use one word to describe The Hobbit, both the product itself and the experience of watching it, it would be “surreal”: after all this time spent waiting and agonizing, I couldn’t do much during the film other than sit there in dazed silence. This is both a good thing and a bad thing, the movie’s greatest strength and its greatest weakness, and even now, I’m not sure which one comes out on top.
Let’s start with the good. It feels nice to be back in Middle-Earth, this magical world of stubborn dwarves, nimble elves and hole-dwelling hobbits first dreamed up by J.R.R. Tolkien, that lover of language and mythology, in the 1950s and brought to vivid, awe-inspiring life by Jackson and his team of technical wizards at the start of the century. Even ten years later, the sight of the cozy hills of Hobbiton and the ethereal valley of Rivendell, the sweeping New Zealand vistas, still evoke a sense of child-like wonder and delight. The Middle-Earth of The Hobbit isn’t exactly the same as the Middle-Earth from The Lord of the Rings – it feels more familiar yet also slightly more fanciful – but the shots of lofty mountains and cavernous halls never fail to amaze me. Here, Jackson expands on the mythology established by The Lord of the Rings; dwarves, who were largely absent from the original trilogy, have a bigger presence here (there apparently are dwarf women, though we only see a glimpse of them), and we’re introduced to a few new creatures, such as mountain trolls and thunder giants.
Tonally,
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
couldn’t be more different from its predecessor. At times, it’s easy to forget
that it belongs to the same franchise, which might sound like a complaint but
is actually a compliment since, surprisingly, the movie is at its best when it’s
least reminiscent of The Lord of the
Rings. It’s common knowledge that The
Hobbit originated as a bedtime story for Tolkien’s children before evolving
into a longer work, albeit one still intended for young people, so it makes
sense that Jackson & co. would, at least for the most part, shed the
solemn, angst-ridden melancholy of The
Lord of the Rings in favor of a lighter, more whimsical tone. If Lord of the Rings was a grand allegory
about war, power and the struggle between good and evil, then The Hobbit is a rollicking adventure
story about one ordinary hobbit who finds himself out of his depth. Jackson
even uses a rather clever framing device in which Bilbo is writing down his
story for Frodo to read, which helps bridge the two trilogies (the present, so
to speak, is the day of Bilbo’s 111th birthday party, just before
the events of LOTR take place) and
also enhances the fairy-tale quality of the film; it’s as if we’re listening to
Bilbo tell us this anecdote, complete with embellishments and absurd happenings,
though the voiceover narration disappears early on. Some of the characters,
particularly Radagast the Brown and the trolls, show hints of the Norse
folklore that influenced much of Tolkien’s writing.
Before I go any farther, I should probably say something about this 48 fps thing that everyone else seems to be obsessed with. As you’ve no doubt already heard a dozen times, Peter Jackson decided to film The Hobbit at twice the frame rate of normal movies, an innovative move that has received feedback ranging from “This is the future of filmmaking!” to “It looks terrible and distracting!” At first, it is a little jarring, like watching HD TV for the first time, but I adjusted to the heightened realism fairly quickly, and after a while, I barely noticed anything different. For the record, I watched the movie in 3D and IMAX, and both were adequate, if not spectacular.
Yet for all its advanced technology, The Hobbit doesn’t come close to the excellence of The Lord of the Rings. What made the original trilogy so visually impressive was not the flashiness of the special effects but rather the opposite: aside from perhaps a few spots here and there, the CGI and the live-action footage are so seamlessly melded together that it’s impossible to tell what is real and what is artificial. Everything looks and feels grounded in reality. On the other hand, although The Hobbit has its share of jaw-dropping scenery, sets and visual effects, viewers are always aware on some level that they are watching CGI, that the creatures – and, I assume, many of the backdrops – are artificial. Many of the battle scenes resemble something from a videogame, which not only makes them stand out like a dwarf in Rivendell but also distracts from the movie. It’s hard to get truly immersed in a world when the world never quite feels real.
It also pretty much goes without saying that the movie is way too long. Sorry, Peter Jackson, but even after seeing An Unexpected Journey, I’m not convinced that it’s a good creative decision to stretch a single book into three movies. The question isn’t whether there’s enough material to fill the time since I don’t doubt that Jackson and his fellow screenwriters, Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens and Guillermo del Toro (who was initially attached to direct but dropped out due to production delays), could dredge up a plethora of interesting tidbits from the appendices and Tolkien’s other Middle-Earth-based works to include; the question is, do we need those tidbits? One of Jackson’s most admirable accomplishments in his adaptation of The Lord of the Rings is the way he managed to condense the epic, even meandering source material into three coherent movies without sacrificing the integrity or depth of the story and its myriad characters. Granted, all of the movies hover around the three-hour mark, but none of the scenes used feel particularly extraneous. Judging from this first installment, The Hobbit lacks that focus, that sense of direction, perhaps because the tighter shooting schedule prevented the filmmakers from giving it the same careful attention that was evident in LOTR (An Unexpected Journey was filmed in a little over a year, only half the time it took to film The Fellowship of the Ring). Regardless of the reason, the pacing feels uneven, dragging in some places (most notably the White Council scene) and rushed in others, and it’s never quite clear where the story is going. Also, the battle scenes, which were thrilling, inventive and suspenseful in LOTR, are pedestrian and forgettable here; it’s almost as if the filmmakers tacked them on simply because they felt obligated to, not because they added a great deal of dramatic tension to the plot.
The Hobbit’s most glaring drawback, however, is its inability to develop anything but the loosest emotional connection to the audience. Jackson tries to elevate the stakes by exploring the return of the Necromancer (aka Sauron), a subplot that was only hinted at in the novel, but whenever the movie tries to veer into darker territory, it sags under the stilted dialogue and ominous prophesying. The characters just aren’t as complex or interesting as the heroes of The Lord of the Rings, making it hard to care about what happens to them. Attempts to flesh out Thorin’s backstory ring hollow; his relationship with Bilbo is set up as the backbone of the narrative, but the two characters never interact enough for their rapport to carry much weight. Even Gandalf, played once again by the trustworthy Ian McKellan, doesn’t quite have the same mixture of shrewdness and charm that made him so magnetic the first time around. It’s not that the actors are bad, per se – they’re all perfectly fine. The film just doesn’t give them the chance to make much of an impression.
Before I go any farther, I should probably say something about this 48 fps thing that everyone else seems to be obsessed with. As you’ve no doubt already heard a dozen times, Peter Jackson decided to film The Hobbit at twice the frame rate of normal movies, an innovative move that has received feedback ranging from “This is the future of filmmaking!” to “It looks terrible and distracting!” At first, it is a little jarring, like watching HD TV for the first time, but I adjusted to the heightened realism fairly quickly, and after a while, I barely noticed anything different. For the record, I watched the movie in 3D and IMAX, and both were adequate, if not spectacular.
Yet for all its advanced technology, The Hobbit doesn’t come close to the excellence of The Lord of the Rings. What made the original trilogy so visually impressive was not the flashiness of the special effects but rather the opposite: aside from perhaps a few spots here and there, the CGI and the live-action footage are so seamlessly melded together that it’s impossible to tell what is real and what is artificial. Everything looks and feels grounded in reality. On the other hand, although The Hobbit has its share of jaw-dropping scenery, sets and visual effects, viewers are always aware on some level that they are watching CGI, that the creatures – and, I assume, many of the backdrops – are artificial. Many of the battle scenes resemble something from a videogame, which not only makes them stand out like a dwarf in Rivendell but also distracts from the movie. It’s hard to get truly immersed in a world when the world never quite feels real.
It also pretty much goes without saying that the movie is way too long. Sorry, Peter Jackson, but even after seeing An Unexpected Journey, I’m not convinced that it’s a good creative decision to stretch a single book into three movies. The question isn’t whether there’s enough material to fill the time since I don’t doubt that Jackson and his fellow screenwriters, Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens and Guillermo del Toro (who was initially attached to direct but dropped out due to production delays), could dredge up a plethora of interesting tidbits from the appendices and Tolkien’s other Middle-Earth-based works to include; the question is, do we need those tidbits? One of Jackson’s most admirable accomplishments in his adaptation of The Lord of the Rings is the way he managed to condense the epic, even meandering source material into three coherent movies without sacrificing the integrity or depth of the story and its myriad characters. Granted, all of the movies hover around the three-hour mark, but none of the scenes used feel particularly extraneous. Judging from this first installment, The Hobbit lacks that focus, that sense of direction, perhaps because the tighter shooting schedule prevented the filmmakers from giving it the same careful attention that was evident in LOTR (An Unexpected Journey was filmed in a little over a year, only half the time it took to film The Fellowship of the Ring). Regardless of the reason, the pacing feels uneven, dragging in some places (most notably the White Council scene) and rushed in others, and it’s never quite clear where the story is going. Also, the battle scenes, which were thrilling, inventive and suspenseful in LOTR, are pedestrian and forgettable here; it’s almost as if the filmmakers tacked them on simply because they felt obligated to, not because they added a great deal of dramatic tension to the plot.
The Hobbit’s most glaring drawback, however, is its inability to develop anything but the loosest emotional connection to the audience. Jackson tries to elevate the stakes by exploring the return of the Necromancer (aka Sauron), a subplot that was only hinted at in the novel, but whenever the movie tries to veer into darker territory, it sags under the stilted dialogue and ominous prophesying. The characters just aren’t as complex or interesting as the heroes of The Lord of the Rings, making it hard to care about what happens to them. Attempts to flesh out Thorin’s backstory ring hollow; his relationship with Bilbo is set up as the backbone of the narrative, but the two characters never interact enough for their rapport to carry much weight. Even Gandalf, played once again by the trustworthy Ian McKellan, doesn’t quite have the same mixture of shrewdness and charm that made him so magnetic the first time around. It’s not that the actors are bad, per se – they’re all perfectly fine. The film just doesn’t give them the chance to make much of an impression.
Still, there is one exception to the rule, and that is Martin Freeman, the British television actor who has recently exploded in popularity due to his portrayal of John Watson in the BBC’s contemporary adaptation of Arthur Conan Doyle’s classic detective novels, Sherlock. Blessed with an uncannily hobbit-like face, Freeman slips into the role of Bilbo Baggins as effortlessly as an arrow onto a bow, and from the moment he first appears, casually puffing on a pipe in front of Bag End, he lights up the screen with his blithe enthusiasm and quiet soulfulness. It’s delightful to watch as Bilbo matures from a somewhat neurotic hobbit content to live alone with his pantry stacked with food to a naïve adventurer amusingly out of his element and, eventually, a plucky hero willing to risk his life for his companions. All the while, Freeman exhibits a remarkable ability to toggle between different emotions – indignation, anxiety, self-doubt, curiosity, loneliness and resolution – with only the subtlest change in his expression. He even nails some of the mannerisms used by Ian Holm, who portrayed the older version of the character in the original trilogy, including his fidgety hand movements and staccato speech pattern (see his delivery of the line “I’m going on an adventure,” featured in the trailer). I may have my fair share of problems with this movie, and I can’t say I’ve changed my stance on the decision to do The Hobbit in the first place, but if it means that I’ll get to see more of Martin Freeman as Bilbo Baggins, then bring it on.
Links:
No comments:
Post a Comment