The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy was a huge success. Not only did it garner widespread critical acclaim, it also managed to appease the obsessive Tolkien aficionados who treat the source material with the kind of reverence normally reserved for religious writing. Despite this, however, rumours abound that Jackson has played faster and looser with his adaptation of The Hobbit...

Toying with the cinematic form (3D, IMAX, 48 frames a second) is always risky, but the director’s biggest risks here have been in his storytelling: expanding Tolkien’s slender tome into three movies is something of a stretch, even with additional material culled from Tolkien’s own appendix to the Return of the King. Can Jackson’s artistry justify his decision making, or will he be accused of selling out his legacy?

Capitalising on the goodwill earned in his original trilogy, Jackson immediately returns his audience to The Shire and its inhabitants: both Ian Holm and Elijah Wood reprise their roles in the prologue. It’s a wise move, instantly transporting fans back into a reassuringly familiar world. It’s a move which works doubly well as young Bilbo Baggins’ (Martin Freeman) home comforts are destroyed by a band of gluttonous dwarves raiding his dining room and devouring the contents of his pantry.

Along with the returning Gandalf (Sir Ian McKellen), they are Bilbo’s companions on his Unexpected Journey to the Lonely Mountain. There, the group will attempt to reclaim the dwarves’ home and steal back their treasures – stolen from them years previously by the dragon Smaug. Bilbo’s role is to be that of burglar: he’s even smaller than the dwarves and Smaug will have never smelt a hobbit’s scent before.

In comparison to Frodo’s attempts to eradicate evil and save Middle Earth, this is an altogether slighter tale – reflecting its origins as a book for children. As such, the dwarves are largely comic caricatures, there are songs, fart jokes and a generally lighter tone. 

That’s not to say this is a knockabout farce, however. There are numerous flashbacks of battle-sequences and beheadings which are far closer in tone and content to the original films. These are gruesome, dark and scary – and by far the best scenes on display. It’s a strange dichotomy, though – the comic fun and slapstick of the crudely drawn dwarves’ adventures jars terribly with these scenes.

These contrasts exist throughout: introducing a whole new cast of characters was always going to be difficult, so Jackson seems to have decided not to bother. Instead he focuses on just a few of the dwarves, adding back-story and personality to a select few. This might have been a wise decision, but it’s undermined by his determination to re-visit characters like Saruman, Elrond and Galadriel who have no place in the original novel. Rather than this mixture of old and new, the film would’ve benefitted greatly from a sharper focus.

In the editing room, too, Jackson might have worked more effectively by adhering to the mantra of ‘less is more’. As wonderful as it is to see Sylvester McCoy back on screen as the eccentric brown wizard Radagast, his scenes could easily have been culled from the film without affecting the storyline in any way. Similarly, absurdly long chase sequences (almost cartoonish capers) would have benefitted from judicious editing.

Thankfully, the performances are good. Martin Freeman justifies Jackson’s faith in him (production was closed down for several months to accommodate the filming of Sherlock), Richard Armitage’s brooding Thorin Oakenshield has charisma and gravitas, and Ken Stott’s twinkly-eyed Balin is a lovely creation. As is often the case, however, it’s Andy Serkis who steals the show.

The famous encounter between Gollum and Bilbo is by far this film’s greatest moment. Despite being disguised beneath layers of CGI, Serkis’ motion-captured physicality and expressive vocal performance lend Gollum a genuine humanity. The to and fro between the two characters as they riddle back and forth is utterly beguiling – and, despite the outcome being pre-determined, there is a genuine sense of peril given how high the stakes are.

It’s a shame the rest of the film didn’t match the high standards of this showdown. An Unexpected Journey is, as we all expected, far too long and a little self-indulgent. It’s also wildly inconsistent, with elements of fantastic drama sitting uneasily alongside elements of farce. Peter Jackson’s previous output has been at its strongest when playing to a more adult audience, with wrong turns taken when dumbing down for the young ‘uns. Here, he doesn’t know what to do, and his film suffers for it.

Let’s hope lessons are learned before the next instalment. And the one after that...

THE IMDB TOP 50 CHALLENGE #27 The Two Towers

The Lord of the Rings is a sprawling fantasy series by author JRR Tolkien which is as much a part of England’s folklore as Glastonbury and Stonehenge. Despite being set in the fictional world of Middle Earth, the books are a model of twee Englishness which have been invoked and referred to in literature, film and music ever since their original publication. But until New Zealander Peter Jackson began filming on The Fellowship of the Ring, nobody had ever attempted to bring a live action version to the silver screen.

For the uninitiated, Tolkien’s tale tells of a powerful ring, forged in the fires of Mount Doom. Into this molten ring, the dark lord Sauron poured all of Middle Earth’s evil, only to lose the ring to an inquisitive hobbit – Bilbo Baggins. Bilbo, unaware of the ring’s capacity for destruction, returns home with it to the peaceful Shire, acting as guardian to it for decades until his old friend, the wizard Gandalf, arrives to announce that the forces of evil are stirring and the ring must be destroyed lest it falls into their hands – by throwing it back into the fire from whence it came.

And thus begins an epic quest to transport the One Ring back to Sauron’s kingdom where it can be cast back into the bubbling cauldron of Mount Doom. That journey is undertaken by a disparate group of characters consisting of four hobbits (tiny, hairy-footed people with voracious appetites), a grumbling dwarf, an ethereal elf and two earthy humans. Along the way they meet talking trees, orcs, olyphants and a hideously transformed creature named Gollum. Will they succeed in their mission, or will Sauron and his evil army triumph?

Sadly, but not unexpectedly, the three Lord of the Rings films do not appear chronologically in the IMDB Top 50. As a result, the first review to appear here is that of the second film in the series: The Two Towers. The Fellowship of the Ring and The Return of the King will follow as the countdown continues – if you’d like to read the reviews in order, please be patient!

There’s little exposition at the start of The Two Towers – just a brief recap of Gandalf’s (Sir Ian Mckellen) tumultuous battle with the balrog. This lack of concession to those who missed the first movie is an indicator of Peter Jackson’s attitude: his films are an all encompassing journey which require the audience to accompany him on the full journey.

Only now, there are three separate journeys to follow: Frodo (Elijah Wood) and his loyal friend Sam (Sean Astin) team up with the wastrel Gollum (a motion-captured Andy Serkis) on their mission to Mount Doom; the heroic Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen) leads dwarf Gimli (John Rhys Davies) and elf Legolas (Orlando Bloom) into the defence of embattled and embittered King Theoden (Bernard Hill) and Merry (Dominic Monaghan) and Pippin (Billy Boyd) encounter the bizarre talking ents – walking, talking trees with a grudge against Sauron and his armies of darkness.

This splitting of the narrative adds great variety and pace to proceedings as each set of characters sets about achieving their very different aims, but it’s safe to say that some of the stories are more interesting than others. The most engaging journey is that of Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas. Their epic battles on behalf of King Theoden are excellent – full of tension, drama and excitement. At the opposite end of the scale are Merry, Pippin and the ents – a deliberately sedate and considered part of the story which is, frankly, quite dull until the amazing revelation which makes their journey into the ancient forest worthwhile.

Most intriguing of all is Frodo, Sam and Gollum’s arduous journey to Mount Doom. As the ring takes a hold of Frodo it becomes harder for him to resist its evil temptations – a process not helped by Gollum’s obsessive desire to obtain ‘the precious’ for himself. And all the while Sam must act as the moral compass of the film, keeping the party moving and attempting to restore peace and order. At times it’s a genuinely interesting moral journey, but too often it becomes a wordy, leaden plod through tortured dialogue and awkward bromance.

Of course, as you would expect, the film ends in a climactic cliff-hanger which practically begs you to watch the final part of the trilogy, but perhaps The Two Towers, more than any of Tolkien’s other books would have benefited from a les faithful interpretation , more concise editing and less bloody talking.

Hanna Reviewed

Owing a huge debt to Luc Besson’s Leon and the Bourne Trilogy, Joe Wright’s Hanna features a young female killer being chased across the globe by a mysterious corporation hell-bent on killing her and her father. With a strong cast (Eric Bana, Cate Blanchett, Tom Hollander), a well-regarded director and a soundtrack by the Chemical Brothers, surely this action romp cannot fail?

Unfortunately, it does fail – although not entirely. It’s a movie which opens strongly as our anti-heroine, Hanna (Saoirse Ronan) and her father Erik (Bana) stalk each other around a snowy woodland playing an increasingly dangerous game of cat and mouse. As it transpires, Erik is trying to toughen up and train his daughter ahead of a mysterious mission which appears to threaten both of their lives. It’s beautifully framed and well filmed, enigmatic and action packed. It’s also the film’s highpoint – things rapidly begin to unravel.

A bizarre and inexplicable plot device (a switch which needs to be flicked) sets the wheels in motion for battle for life against Blanchett’s CIA agent Marissa. From here on in it becomes a fairly standard action flick with a clichéd collection of villains on Hanna’s trail through a variety of landscapes and set-pieces. These stereotypical goons have a variety of dreadful accents. Hollander’s cartoon German is probably the most grating – but only because Blanchett only remembers to use her southern drawl intermittently. A hippy family with whom Hanna hitches are also intensely irritating, although this is (hopefully) deliberate. They serve the plot well and add a little humour – Jessica Barden is charmingly obnoxious as daughter Sophie.

What elevates Hanna from being a distinctly average movie is the central character. Saoirse Ronan is a mesmerising presence – angelic and ghostly, strong but vulnerable. That a sixteen year old actress manages to carry such a flawed movie single handedly is quite an achievement. It helps that hers is the only well written character in the piece. Having lived an isolated existence in the woods her naive wonder at the wider world is an interesting counterpoint to her brutality and killer instinct.

The Chemical Brothers score is absolutely faultless as far as the duo are concerned. Their music has always had an epic, filmic aspect to it – especially in their ability to change tempo and build to dramatic crescendos. Sadly, they are rather unsubtly used here – as soon as you hear one of their songs beginning you know an action scene is on the way. This kind of signposting is unnecessary.

That kind of clumsiness becomes ever more apparent as the film lurches towards an inevitable and predictable conclusion. Gaping plot-holes and an utterly contrived ending ensure that the film peters out pathetically compared to its powerful opening.