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| Don't mess with short people. |
I was a huge fan of The Lord of the Rings movies as a kid. How could you not be? Epic in every sense of the word, there was no way to avoid being sucked into the at least three-hour vortex of fantasy of Peter Jackson's hobbit adventures (that is, films he made about hobbit adventures. I don't think he had any hobbit adventures himself...).
Fast forward to 2012, almost an entire decade after the last installment of the beloved LOTR series, Jackson wants us to relive the magic of Middle Earth and we're all perfectly okay with that (okay being the key word here).
To be quite honest, I was absolutely giddy about this film when I saw the trailer for it. After all, it was another chance to explore the JRR Tolkienverse and it starred Sherlock actor and beloved hedgehog Martin Freeman. So why did I feel so "meeehhh" about it after seeing it?
First off, Martin Freeman and Sir Ian McKellen are incredible people. Ian McKellen is so incredible, in fact, that I am willing to create Chuck Norris Fact websites centered around him and him alone. Incredible people deserve incredible scripts. An incredible script, this was not. It wasn't terrible or even bad. It just makes me wish that perhaps they had taken a little more time or, heck, even made the movie a little longer. There's a lot of story to cover and there was more filler than was necessary. As much as I love "That's What Bilbo Baggins Hates," (aka "The Song that Most Describes My Feelings Towards Humanity") we really didn't need to spend so much time watching him welcome the dwarves into his home. Dwarves are rowdy folk, yeah, but you don't need to spend that much time establishing that.
That brings me to my next complaint: the comic relief. Yeah, this is an adventure flick. The comedy shouldn't be the focus. However, that's no excuse to be lazy about it. The majority of the comic relief in the movie was juvenile, bodily humor. Which is fine maybe once or twice, but it kept happening. It kept happening to the point that the movie became silly (especially when compared to the majestic Lord of the Rings trilogy). There's a right and a wrong way to do humor in an adventure film. The Avengers did it the right way: quippy one-liners from our heroes that didn't take away from the overall epic tone of the film. The Hobbit did it the wrong, lazy way. Not in a way that's completely distracting, but, as an audience member, I did notice and couldn't help but feel a little cheated.
But how could I forget the very heart of the writing? The story! And how did the story fare? Well, while an interesting, action-packed story, I couldn't help but feel that it moved a little slow. I was fine with the slow, deliberate pace in The Lord of the Rings trilogy because I knew it was supposed to be an epic with a lot of material. The Hobbit, however, didn't have the same grace and, therefore, felt a little slow for what it was. I was kind of hoping for this to be a one-movie story, but by the ending (SPOILER) it looks like we'll be getting a sequel in a year or two. Hopefully, by then, the story will be more grounded and move a little faster since it won't be so weighted down in (somewhat unnecessary) exposition.
Enough complaining (even though complaining is my favorite). What did I like about this movie? As previously stated, Sir Ian Roundhouse Kick McKellen and Martin Freeman are next to Jesus and Tina Fey in my Hall of Incredible People (located in Bucksnort, TN). Great actors and all-around lovable off camera, how could I not love watching them in this film? The characters are the strongest aspect of the film. On top of the already beloved Bilbo Baggins and Gandalf the Grey, we also become more acquainted with the dwarves and Radagast the Brown. Each character is unique, fun, and enjoyable to watch. (Well, alright, Thorin can be a dick to Bilbo sometimes, but Benedict Cumberdragon wrecked up his house or some shit, so he gets a free pass.)
Lastly, and most importantly, I loved seeing Gollum in this movie. I mean it. Gollum is one of my favorite characters of all time. If you've ever been in a theatre group, you know that everyone's favorite pastime is whispering "precioussssssss" behind stage. I love Gollum so much, I would get a tramp stamp of his bug-eyed emaciated face (with a caption of "Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire," because who doesn't love a good Precious pun?). If you're as much of a Gollum fan as I am, you'll love the scene of him in this movie. It's probably the best-written and most entertaining scenes in the film. I really wish that the writers of this film had taken the time to make the rest of the movie like this scene. It's just Gollum and Martin Freeman in a cave. That's really all I needed in life.
So if you have some extra time between Christmas and New Year's, check out The Hobbit, but don't expect it to be anything close to the LOTR trilogy, or you're just disappointing yourself. It's lovable and fans will enjoy it, but it wasn't the epic I was hoping for.
Have a happy winter holiday, my preciouses! I promise never to desert you for such a long time ever again. (I might be lying...)
