The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

Now here is something that surprised me, despite everyone's grumbling across the world over, I actually liked this film. Trust me, no one was more surprised than me. Overall, I could full accept that it was going to be a trilogy, I acknowledged that it was going to be stretched out to ridiculous degrees, therefore there would be a lot of padding. Fine, I expected this. To be completely honest it didn't matter to me when it became apparent there was going to be three films, it seems quite bizarre given the length of The Hobbit, making a trilogy in comparison to turning three books into three films. But hey, why not? It's happening! Which also brings us to another known blatant problem; it's a children's book, this differs massively in tone to Lord of the Rings. So the tone is a bit more light hearted, there are thirteen dwarves roaming around with a mad old wizard and the titular hobbit, sure there is a mission at hand, it's pretty high stakes for the dwarves, but it's painfully obvious that the film is stretching out their adventure to the nth degree and make it somewhat perilous. Peter Jackson is trying to make it an epic (god that word is far too overused in cinema lately...) adventure for the masses, but to be perfectly honest it's going to be more fun this time round, at least it felt like that. There are subplots and allusions to the future trilogy, there is even a song, and a lot of trotting about, oh and ponies!

But to be perfectly honest, I wasn't bothered that they felt the need to drag everything out, it was still enjoyable. I can't be more plain than that, I was happy to watch the adventure take place before me. Of course the amount of peril you can put your merry band of dwarves in is immediately hampered by the fact that you know, as far as children's stories go, they will all get to the end and face the dragon two movies later. It's a blatant fact in Hollywood films you need your lead characters to get to the end unscathed so they'll survive ridiculous odds and situations over and over, usually that would irritate the hell out of me, for example in Prometheus, that irritated the hell out of me, well... the whole film irritated me. This time it didn't bother me, at all! I was just enjoying the adventure.

There is quite a simple fact that kept me from losing interest in this film. Ian McKellen. I could happily watch three hours of that man eating crumpets in an armchair and talking about the weather, in fact that would be an awesome film... At school the teacher had a tape of Ian McKellen reading Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere, it was a great poem but my god hearing that man's voice made the whole thing just click in my brain so much better, his voice is entrancing... Gandalf the Grey is one of his best roles, in my mind's eye I can't see any other face as him, he embodies the role so well, it's just satisfying to see a great actor work his magic.

Martin Freeman worked brilliantly as Bilbo Baggins, once again he was pretty much acting a role he was very much comfortable in and it showed. Then there was the whole dwarf crew, there was a the King Dwarf, Thorin, there was the old wizened dwarf who was his right hand man, there was James Nesbitt, 'Fili and Kili', one of them was very attractive is all I can remember, the big scary bald one... Then the rest kind of merge into an amalgamation odd beards and hairstyles. Then the returning cast, Hugo Weaving playing a happy to help Elrond, Cate Blanchett reappears as the mystical Galadriel, then Christopher Lee is carted out as Saruman. Let's be completely honest, their scenes were a little bit superfluous but it was nice to see them all bouncing off each other. Christopher Lee, is pretty old now, he could barely stand when they gave him his lifetime achievement award at the BAFTAs, they even CGIed all of his wrinkles away!* The scene with Galadriel and Gandalf just reminded me how much I love watching Ian McKellen talk to anyone, do anything, stand about in a sunset... Andy Serkis also reprieved his role as Gollum in a brilliant scene between him and Bilbo. I'll never understand quite how they do it but it was so much fun, Gollum was as always dangerously insane and his game with the Hobbit even prompted a few laughs from the cinema.

Then there was the whole 48fps thing. I went to see it in 3D but I also assume it was that 48fps thing too, to be completely honest I wasn't at all bothered by it, it looked beautiful which also made the three hours somewhat worth it. The entire thing was just really wonderful to behold, a cinematic experience to say the least, sometimes the glasses irritated me, as they always do and I spent a few scenes with them dangling around my chin, but apart from that my eyes didn't melt and my brain wasn't bothered at all, I'm actually a little disappointed I can't complain more about this thing. Everyone seems so worked up about it! I noticed nothing, it was just really visually amazing and I couldn't fault it, shame.

Familiarity is something that I find quite comforting, a lot of people do, we hate change. Well I know I do... So sitting for three hours watching this film was enjoyable because I pretty much knew what was going to happen, it's blatantly obvious, Bilbo was definitely going to go on a journey with Gandalf, the thirteen dwarves were all going to be stupid and a rambling bunch, there would be a lot of trotting across various strange and wonderful landscapes, there would be some battles of some description, everyone would survive, Gandalf would be awesome. So in all nothing was surprising, but it was all still entertaining! I was entertained! It was enjoyable. Once you get over the fact that they are simply stretching out a really short story to ridiculous degrees, once your eyes adjust to the 48fps, once you accept the tone is going to be a bit of a mess, once you leave your logical thinking mind at the door and just sit and observe the film it's a good way to spend a few hours. The hours weren't wasted, it felt like a genuinely fun way to spend my precious time, and money.

'The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey' pretty much does what it set out to do, it sets up the first chapter of three, it reintroduces a bunch of old characters and gives us a multitude of fun new ones, sets up a new adventure, leaves some threads dangling for the next chapters. There are thrills and spills, there is plenty of Gandalf! Being prepared to dislike a film and then finding myself pleasantly surprised is a nice feeling and that's pretty much it. I was more than prepared to skewer this film and find reasons to complain but to be honest I didn't, I liked it, and finding things that I genuinely like is a hard task in this world.

*I know it's probably just make up, but my brain just immediately jumped to CGI when I noticed how good Christopher Lee looked. To be fair considering it's supposed to be earlier they all looked pretty good...