The Hobbit An Unexpected Journey
Cast: Martin Freeman, Ian
McKellen, Ken Stott, Christopher Lee, Sylvester McCoy, Andy Serkis,
Barry Humphries, Cate Blanchett
Director: Peter Jackson
Running time: 169 minutes
Barry Humphries, Cate Blanchett
Director: Peter Jackson
Running time: 169 minutes
Peter Jackson steps back to bring another Tolkienathon to the screen with this – where one hobbit, thirteen dwarfs and a wizard with a plan - meet for the first time, before the motley crew embark upon their quest to find the dwarf home. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is soon thundering along, towards a conclusion which is only six chapters into what was a nineteen-chapter book.
At just under three hours, it pulls in Middle-Earth material from beyond The Hobbit, with two more bum-numbing films to go to complete the trilogy.
Once the adventurers have survived trolls, stone giants and elfish vegetarian cooking, the merry little gang find themselves bouncing between masses of goblins, a gang of orcs, a pack of wargs and, of course, inevitably, a Gollum. The effect of all that is a heady mix of electrifying and exhausting.
It’s a rollercoaster product of state-of-the-art special effects hocus-pocus, but thankfully, it's still grounded in character and features that old-fashioned screen software called "acting". This time, better-known-on-tv Martin Freeman takes on the role of Bilbo Baggins as he leads up the action, and in a sparkling scene with Andy Serkis' motion-captured Gollum, he’s involved in a pivotal face-off as they play riddles for that bloody ubiquitous ring.
Elsewhere, Ian McKellen plays a slightly more vulnerable Gandalf than the wiser sage of his later years, while Richard Armitage (a spooky Sean Bean soundalike) as dwarf leader Thorin Oakenshield, struts his stuff as the pint-size warrior out to recapture his birthright from the dragon Smaug.
But of course, this is not just Jackson and his co-boffins returning to familiar territory for the prequel, made inevitable by the success of their Lord of the Rings trilogy. It's also a film pioneering high definition 48 frames per second 3D (though on most screens it may well be in standard 3D and 2D), and which has already had its detractors.
I've suffered through some zonking eyeball-headache-inducing 3D in the past few years. Here, however, other than being initially disconcerted by the clarity and feeling my optic nerves recalibrating to the immersive effect, especially when one of the legs fell off my hi-tech three dimensional cheapskate plastic specs, as in the dwarves' invasion of Bilbo's house, which conveys all the weird intimacy of a stage play – almost live action, ironically - I managed to survive without suffering any devastating after-effects.
The Hobbit does suffer however from an especially dull music soundtrack. Howard Shore's orchestral score attempts to recreate the moods and effects from the previous ‘Ring’ trilogy, but it really does fall flat and does nothing to enhance the visuals.
The main highlight of the film though is the comedy element, although some of the contemporary references do jar a little as being gratuitously inserted to appeal to modern juvenile culture (you’ll see what I mean as you watch the feature).
As for the rest of the cast, Ken Stott is wonderful, James Nesbitt adds some cheeky Irish goblin charm, and Sylvester McCoy's woodland wizard Radagast is a delight, complete with the birds’ nest in his hair and the resultant ornithological poo streaming down his beard. Worth a mention too is Barry Humphries as the Great Goblin, a hideous creature with a Stan Ogden caricature countenance, set off with what appears to be a wobbly giant spotty scrotum for a chin.
