Depending
on your level of acquaintance with the Lord of the Rings trilogy, you
may or may not notice Middle Earth feeling a bit different this time around. The
Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey goes to great lengths to identify itself closely with The Lord of
the Rings trilogy, with cameo appearances by Lord of the Rings characters
that strictly speaking, ought not to appear in The Hobbit from a
purist's perspective. But for the moment I won't trouble you my
reader too much with talk of the book, even if it is one of my favorites of all
time. Back to the point, while the Hobbit takes some creative
opportunities to identify itself with The Lord of the Rings, it takes a
few steps of its own that are entirely unlike The Lord of the
Rings, giving The Hobbit its own distinctive style.
The
first and most obvious of these divergences, are the villainous beastly orcs
and goblins (the distinction between the two is especially hazy here). A goblin
commander is introduced here named Azog the Defiler, who is tall and pale with
battle scars and a nasty club grown into his elbow where his arm used to be.
There is no doubt that this Azog is not just another growling goblin, but a
hero to his side of the conflict. But I have a slight issue with Azog, beyond
his presence contradicting certain details of Middle Earth history: he's too clean. Other than the club in his arm a few battle scars, he looks like he showers often-- his flesh itself is just very clean. I am not trying to indicate that every goblin and orc must aspire to be like
the sordid leader of the Uruk-Hai from The Fellowship of the Ring, but
Azog's lack of weathering fundamentally affected my perception of him. In the
past these sorts were disgusting-- they looked sticky and wreaked of rotting
flesh and unhealed wounds. Here they are still ugly, but more than capable of
walking about in daylight as though they own it, without bothering to even
think about lurking in shadows. As odd as Azog may have been, he was nothing
compared to the Goblin King.
The
Goblin King was a spectacular display of the influence of Guillermo del Toro,
but His Majesty was a bit too comical to be taken seriously as anything other
than Jabba the Hutt with legs. After the capture of the dwarves, the Goblin
King is seen dancing and stamping his feet as he sings a jolly tune about
crushing their bones, only to be cut off abruptly from his lively song when
someone's sword accidentally falls into view and scares him. This convenient
diversion gives the company enough time to scramble about and collect
themselves into fighting mode so they can slash and push their way to the exit.
The Goblin King reappears menacingly, and then dies in a forcefully comic
manner so anticlimactic, that even His Royal Ugliness could not come up with
better parting words.
Unfortunately,
the rest of the goblins are not much better. Personally, I found it difficult
to really accept most of the goblins and other orcs as flesh and blood. Perhaps it was
the lack of ooze that I was accustomed to after three Lord of the Rings movies,
but these goblins often felt like computer generated foes who possess too
little wit to do anything but shriek and twitch and fight at the outsiders.
When the band of dwarves make their grand escape and many goblins meet their
doom at the tip of a sword, there is something amiss. In The Fellowship of
the Ring for example, in the battle of Moria, each sword was plunged
and clashed with conviction and fury. The heroes sweat with the exhausting
efforts of defeating such great numbers. The factor that makes you wince when
a being is sliced by sword, or the tension of knowing how much the character is
putting himself out to defeat said foes, is simply absent. Ill-timed comic
levity also breaks up the intensity of what could have been a very engaging
fight sequence, making it more akin to Pirates of the Caribbean.
Now
that the goblins have had some roasting, I move my attention to the dwarves.
The first thing I will say in praise of the dwarves was the wise idea to
individualize each of the fourteen into distinctive characters. The most
striking among them is Thorin Oakenshield, played excellently by Richard
Armitage. Armitage gives the character Thorin the heart and depth of a
convincing leader and courageous warrior, while still leaving room for
development later on. For the most part, Thorin is a hard and somewhat
edgy-tempered dwarf, but his eyes soften when he speaks of his home and his
desire to reclaim it. He is just, in a word, passionate. He is passionate about
his homeland and the mission to reclaim it, passionate about his hatred of
elves, passionate in his leadership of the dwarves, and so on.
The
rest of the dwarves are a mishmash band, most of whom look absolutely nothing
like Gimli from Lord of the Rings. To
be fair, fourteen Gimli look a-likes would be overwhelming and it was hard
enough to keep track of them all with so many of them onscreen. That is why I
said it was wise to individualize the fourteen into distinctive characters.
Even then however, there are too many to keep up with. Aside from Thorin, Kili
and Fili are the only ones who really stand out, and that’s because they’re the
young whippersnappers and the most attractive. Seriously speaking, I strongly
suspect that the overnight success of Orlando Bloom due to Lord of the Rings contributed to the casting choices here, as if
someone said “we need some pretty faces…it will pull in the young female crowd
and sell posters.” Not that I’m complaining—they both behave in a properly
dwarvish manner, but with a bit more Merry and Pippin type look of mischief in
their eyes. It was a fair casting choice, but probably also a strategic one in
terms of marketing. The oldest and most distinguished dwarf called Balin is the
only other one that really makes an impression, and that’s partially because he
narrates a bit of history. He’s also a nice old boy whom Thorin is quite tender
towards, and sometimes shares the mantle of wise elder with Gandalf.
I
had wondered on whether or not I should really mention this, but since I’m here
I may as well and you may choose not to read it. It seems that along with
deciding to cast the younger dwarves as attractive sorts, someone must have also
determined that there should be a character to represent the metrosexuals and a
character to represent those who were bullied in school. Yes, you read that
correctly. There is a dwarf with finely combed hair who is a connoisseur of
fine wine, and one rather skinny dwarf with a bowl haircut and no facial hair
who talks with a bit of a stutter. By nature of the culture, dwarves are great
stoneworkers, metalworkers, and smiths. The odd characterizations of the two
mentioned above go against this significantly, and really do not add anything
to the story.
The
strongest performances and characters here are Thorin, Bilbo, and Gandalf. Ian
McKellen reprises his role as Gandalf, with no real surprises. The only real
surprise to Gandalf’s character this time around is how he comes off so
carefree at times, and uncertain at other times. However, an important thing to
keep in mind is that the times of The
Hobbit are far less precarious than the times of The Lord of the Rings, and Gandalf’s attitude reflects that. He is
overall less serious here, often contributing to the comic levity throughout.
Bilbo,
ingeniously portrayed by Martin Freeman, makes for a lovable and connectable
protagonist. Bilbo begins as a determined homebody, and really no one would
blame him for loving his life full of good food and pipe weed. As a lead
protagonist, I must say that Bilbo is extremely personable with his quirks,
outbursts, and love of domestic life. Of all the scenes in the movie, the
sequence with Bilbo and Gollum pitching riddles back and forth to each other is
probably the most masterfully done. The life that Andy Serkis breathes into the
mysterious Gollum is both comical and chilling. While the audience laughs at
the dual-personality that is so brilliantly portrayed onscreen, the fact that
he might turn on Bilbo and try to throttle him at any moment is still an
ever-constant threat. Gollum's facial expressions captured by the miracle of
technology are delightful, and make the character real and touchable. 
Thus
far I have come down hard on what I perceived to be the missteps of The Hobbit, but to be fair, not everything is done poorly. The moment when Bilbo unknowingly acquires
The One Ring is given adequate reverence, and the bit of added history did
put some perspective on the dwarves and their long-standing bitter history with
the elves (which is referenced throughout the trilogy between Gimli and
Legolas. If you pay attention to names, you’ll make the connection that
Legolas’s father ditched the dwarves in their moment of need, essentially costing
them their homeland). The writers here draw attention to the cultural tendency
of the dwarves to sing, and weave it in so seamlessly that at no point do their
spontaneous tunes seem out of place. 
I understand that the tone and times of the Hobbit are not
the same as The Lord of the Rings, and I honestly would not take issue with this
if the movie had not labored to tie itself to The Lord of the Rings, and
present itself as an equal epic. But because the Hobbit took very specific
steps to ensure that the audience felt familiar with this Middle Earth, the
changes feel out of sync with the previously established world. This
presents a conflict in a few ways. The first is that The Hobbit rides the success
of The Lord of the Rings, and therefore needed to tie itself to those movies in
some way. However, had The Hobbit followed the same tone of The Lord of the
Rings, it would have completely betrayed the spirit of the novel, which is
starkly different than The Lord of the Rings. In light of all of this, I must
conclude that The Hobbit does very well walking a bit of a tricky line, but falls off track a few times. The
movie tries to elude to the fact that there is more stirring in the darkness of
the world than a simple matter of a dragon’s invasion, but throws off the
foreboding tone by presenting characters like Radagast, who seemed that he belonged more in a Narnia movie than
Middle Earth.
The result is that the movie is good, and although it doesn’t
quite reach the same heights as The Lord of the Rings, there is enough of the story left that The Hobbit may still have some tricks up its sleeves. The movie closes with a long journey still ahead, and the greatest battles not yet begun. Therefore, as The Hobbit has a way to go before its journey is complete, I withhold my judgment of the trilogy until it is. It may yet make a place in movie history.
