The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

The orcs, elves, grey and white wizards, dwarves, and hobbits are back! Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit is a prequel to his hugely successful Lord of the Rings trilogy (LOTR). Once again, he spreads the story over three films. So anyone who wants to know how the adventures of Bilbo Baggins work out will have to wait until 2014. For LOTR, Jackson could fall back on three hefty tomes by the novelist professor JRR Tolkien; this time he has only one thin young people’s book to draw on: a prelude that tells how Bilbo Baggins came into possession of the all-powerful ring. The honest hobbit was recruited by Gandalf the Grey, the dwarf leader Thorin, and twelve other dwarves, who were keen to reconquer their mountain, their gold treasure, and their homes from the dragon Smaug. Jackson finds enough material by going into great detail, by adding scenes, and by clever anticipation of later happenings in LOTR. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey gets off to an unexpectedly bad start, however, with unnecessary scenes involving LOTR veterans Ian Holm and Elijah Wood, some mediocre slapstick, and a much too long-drawn-out introductory scene with starving dwarves. The Shire looks more like the land of the Teletubbies than the homeland of the hobbits. And it takes a while to get used to the HFR (higher frame rates): Jackson’s cameras don’t shoot 24 images a second, but 45. Which is said to provide more precise and more realistic footage of lively motion.

Our advice is: arrive at the cinema half an hour late. The film gets better and better. Which is not unrelated to the fact that the action and the fights become more and more spectacular. When it comes to epic spectacle Jackson towers high above everyone else (thanks to his army of collaborators). Only once does the story cause the heart to beat faster: during the confrontation between Gollum (“my preciousss”) and Bilbo. Injecting the darkness and vast scale of LOTR into The Hobbit is quite an achievement by Jackson. On to next year!

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey ●●●
US, NZ, 2012, dir.: Peter Jackson, act.: Martin Freeman, Ian McKellen, 166 min.