AND DETAILED JOURNEY by Bennett Campbell Ferguson
Left: Martin Freeman's Bilbo receives the call to adventure
In Peter Jackson’s “The
Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey,” we meet a heroic company of Dwarves on a quest
to reclaim their homeland—the mountain known as Erebor. Via a long-winded opening montage, we’re told
that Dwarves ruled Erebor until the ferocious dragon Smaug snatched it from
them, leaving them homeless. Now, the
noble Dwarf king Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitage) has assembled a group of
followers to defeat Smaug and restore Erebor to Dwarf control once more.
Perusing this premise, you might expect the film to lead
into a grandiose battle in which the Dwarves finally fulfill their destiny by
confronting Smaug. Alas, I must
disappoint you. For “An Unexpected
Journey” is not an adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkein’s esteemed novel “The
Hobbit”—it is an adaptation of one-third
of the novel, the first of a new cinematic trilogy. And while Mr. Jackson might have imagined
that playing the tale over a series of several films would allow him to adapt
the book more faithfully, it has mainly bloated the tale to an already excessive
length. In “An Unexpected Journey”
alone, a great many things happen, from duels with trolls to subdued interviews
with elves. And yet the film is all
action and no emotion—almost nothing of consequence happens in over the course
of its two hour and forty-nine minute length.
That’s not to say the film is without charms. Early on, we’re introduced to Bilbo Baggins,
a Hobbit (AKA a diminutive humanoid with pointy ears) who would love nothing
better than to spend his existence lounging and feasting in his comfortable
home—a dream which is abruptly upended by the arrival of Thorin and his
followers. They need Bilbo’s help to
defeat Smaug, but the nobility of their cause holds no interest for our
sheltered hero; for him, going off on an adventure mostly means missing his
favorite armchair. Certainly, that’s a rather
fussy position to take. And yet this
attitude makes Bilbo considerably more relatable than most action heroes—after
all, we’re the ones watching him have an adventure while we sit safely in our
seats.
Of course, persuasion prevails upon Bilbo and he does agree
to join Thorin and friends and together, they trek towards Erebor through the
dangerous and picturesque land known as Middle Earth. As a director, Mr. Jackson has in fact visited
Middle Earth’s rough mountains and shadowy forests before, quite famously in
his Oscar-winning “Lord of the Rings” trilogy (which was also based on Mr.
Tolkein’s works). Those films were
notable for their dreamlike, almost Terrence Malick-esque visions, like a scene
in which a godlike being wondered whether or not to intervene in a mythical
battle of good versus evil. That, for
me, was a defining moment in the trilogy, the reason that even though I can’t
pretend to be a fan of Middle Earth or Mr. Jackson’s directing, I do think that
he transformed “The Lord of the Rings” into a bold and impressively strange
piece of work.
It’s a shame that he couldn’t do the same for “The
Hobbit.” “An Unexpected Journey” is rife
with cinematic miscalculations, although part of its failing lies in the
premise itself. For Thorin and the
Dwarves, the quest to reclaim Erebor is one of grave importance. Yet Mr. Jackson never gives us a reason to
invest in it—in fact, he even includes a scene where one Dwarf states that
they’ve already found a fine new home in the “Blue Mountains.” And quite frankly, it’s hard to even root for
Thorin. Mr. Armitage’s talent can hardly
be doubted (he played a satisfyingly Mr. Darcy-esque brooder in the BBC series
“North and South”) but for all the fuss made about Thorin, the character never
registers as anything more than an obnoxious grump whose main narrative
function is to whiningly doubt Bilbo so the inexperienced young Hobbit can
prove him wrong.
Luckily, Bilbo himself is better company. The fact that he’s played by the nervously
affable Martin Freeman makes you predisposed to root for him and therein lies
the majority of the film’s charm—it’s an unexpected journey about unexpected
heroes, people who have more compassion and courage than they let on. I think that theme (which is neatly
encapsulated in one line about “small acts of kindness” having more value than
power) could have made “An Unexpected Journey” a fine adventure, but it gets
squandered in a series of meaningless battles.
For all Mr. Jackson’s experience as a filmmaker, his staging of the
fight scenes is stunningly infantile—working with cinematographer Andrew
Lesnie, he shoots the action in quick-moving wide shots that make the
characters (even the non-computer-generated ones) look like toys. Even the great Ian McKellen (who anchors the
film as the crafty wizard Gandalf) looks like an action figure as he charges
across a crumbling catwalk, pursued by a goblin army.
Of
course, great action does not a great blockbuster make; even “Iron Man” is more
memorable for its witty wordplay than its robotics-induced explosions. “An Unexpected Journey” does have its own share
of jokes, but what it really needs is some human drama to make all the violence
and fantastical images mean something.
Mr. Jackson may have built a cinematic empire with his company, Weta
Digital, but even he can’t adapt one-third of a book without padding it. And while he could have padded “The Hobbit”
by delving deeper into the souls of Bilbo, Thorin, and Galdalf, he instead
bolsters the movie by inundating us with endless battles with endless armies of
Orcs and Goblins. Which is why the film
feels too long for all the wrong reasons and, like Bilbo, desperately in need
of seasoning.
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