“My dear Frodo, you asked me once if I told you everything there was to know about my adventures. While I can honestly say I’ve told you the truth, I may not have told you all of it.” And so begins The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, the first installment in director Peter Jackson’s Hobbit trilogy. It’s been 9 years since we’ve traveled to Middle-Earth, and fans of Tolkien and the Lord of the Rings have been dying for an excuse to go back. Whether or not this will entirely satisfy that craving though, I can’t say. We never want something we love to come to an end…but sometimes, it’s better to end on a good note rather than to milk something for all it’s worth. At nearly three hours long and covering only a mere six chapters of the book, The Hobbit proves that there is indeed such a thing as too much of a good thing after all.
Taking place 60 years before the events ofThe Fellowship of the Ring, The Hobbit follows young Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman), who joins the wizard Gandalf (Ian McKellen) and 13 dwarves on a quest to help them reclaim their homeland. The story is a simple one, and easily could have been told in a single film. But alas, we’re not so fortunate. Don’t get me wrong, there’s plenty here to admire; the film is a visual treat, one that is greatly enhanced by the 48 fps 3D. It may take some getting used to at first, but the higher frame rate (twice that of the regular 24 fps that film usually runs at), serves to create a crystal clear picture, letting no detail go by unnoticed. You’ve never seen Middle-Earth look quite like this before. Martin Freeman is a delight as Bilbo, exhibiting both charm and good humor. However it’s Andy Serkis as Gollum that makes the biggest impression. He only has one scene (if it were up to me, there would be a lot more), but it’s that one scene that catapults the film out of its bloated, dragging state and reminds us why these movies are so widely loved. The “riddles in the dark” scene, the one in which Bilbo obtains the infamous “one ring that rules them all” from Gollum, may very well be my single favorite movie scene of this year.
So let me ask you this: why, oh why, did this film need to be verging on three hours in length? Furthermore, why do we need three Hobbit films – which will no doubt add up to a total of nine hours to tell the story that the book told in just 300 pages? This is purely a set-up film, not terribly unlike Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (or what I like to call: Harry Potter and the Never-ending Camping Trip). The thing about a set-up film is, it needs to actually make you want to see the film it’s setting you up for -- something that Harry Potter still accomplished. The Hobbit? Not so much. Because let me tell you, no amount of technical wizardry can mask the mind-numbing boredom inspired by that middle portion. The Hobbit has moments of greatness, including an action-packed last half hour that seriously does that 48 fps 3D justice -- but in the end, there is nothing unexpected about Jackson’s refusal to err on the side of brevity.
Rating: C+
