Saturday, December 29, 2012

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012)

Beginning with a stunning prologue establishing the central conflict, much like Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit promises too much but delivers less.

Frodo was an inquisitive young man who grew up listening to his uncle's adventure stories. All it took was a little prod to get him going on his journey. Bilbo, though, has grown overly fond of his Mother's china and the comfort of his home. The arrival of Gandalf was probably the best thing that ever happened to him. I understand his need to take some time to make up his mind but eating up close to an 45 minutes of runtime is a little too much. 

One of the biggest problems with the movie is its lack of enough new, memorable characters. The film received loudest cheers when Serkis' Gollum appeared. The weight of taking the story forward fell on Martin Freeman's Bilbo, who did whatever he could to give us someone to champion. Since he got no help from his dwarf friends, the effects were not entirely satisfactory. I had read how the dwarves lacked personality and that is very true. The ones I remember right now are Thorin, Kili, the one who wore a Russian fur cap and the sagely old dwarf. The others are largely forgettable.   There are some six who I don't remember seeing even after looking at their character posters. And what's the deal with Radagast the Grey? I seriously don't know what happened there. His entire part contributed to further bloat the movie.

There's this scene in a cave between Bilbo and Gollum where he comes to possess the Ring dropped by the latter. Ultimately, after a fantastically staged riddle session, Bilbo is faced with the dilemma of whether to spare Gollum's life or not. In that instant, I couldn't help but look at the bigger picture. About how that particular scene goes on to play such a critical role in history of middle earth, forever altering the course of lives of so many. In a surprisingly touching moment, with a close up on Gollum's faces, Bilbo's decision to spare him echoed Gandalf words: "Courage is not about knowing when to take a life... but when to spare one!” I don't think I will ever find myself even remotely in a position where I'd need that bit of wisdom, but its these lines about compassion, friendship and other qualities that made those three films so damn special. 

I was very late to catching up with the Lord of the Rings movies, but even when I did, I had not seen anything like it. I still haven't seen anything like it. Structure-wise, The Hobbit appears to be similar to them. It's hard to look at this movie and not compare it with those earlier ones. It has its share of big action set pieces in the final act but still gives the impression that it is working on a much smaller scale. Like it is playing out to those little kids in the Shire Bilbo tells his stories to, and easily scares with a sudden "puff!". We have already witnessed battles of indescribable magnitude. This feels like a severely watered-down version of middle earth. But after lifting the weight of its unarguably superior sequels off its chest, The Hobbit is an adequately entertaining adventure film.

On the whole, The Hobbit is definitely a bloated entry which could have benefited from Del Toro's vision. It doesn't move any mountains (pun honestly unintended), but injects tiny doses of nostalgia at regular intervals. I am hardly dying to see the next two entries, and to be honest, I wasn't very high on watching this film even before the not-so-impressed reviews started appearing. The Hobbit is a very good Narnia movie. I had fun.