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 #17 The Fellowship of the Ring

Users of the IMDB have rightly judged The Fellowship of the Ring to be a superior film to its sequel, The Two Towers. As a result, my review of that film is already online here. The final instalment of the trilogy, The Return of the King will be available shortly.

When his kind old Uncle Bilbo hands him a mysteriously engraved gold ring, Frodo Baggins’ life is changed forever. For Bilbo’s gift is the One Ring, forged from pure evil by the dark lord Sauron. Now, dark forces are on the move in Middle Earth - and are desperate to recover the ring. Along with three of his friends, Frodo leaves the comfort of his idyllic home in The Shire to see that the ring is made safe. And thus begins the most incredible journey...

Essentially, The Fellowship of the Ring is designed largely as a means to whet the appetite for further instalments to come. It sets the scene, introduces a cavalcade of colourful characters and leaves the audience on a stunning cliff-hanger. At times it’s a little twee, occasionally a little ponderous, but it’s a wonderfully visual spectacle which showcases the majesty of its New Zealand backdrops in fine style.

The opening exposition is beautifully narrated and features excellent CGI armies, creating a darkly ominous atmosphere from the outset – a superb contrast with the lush greens and playful natures of the scenes which follow in The Shire. Here, the peace loving hobbits celebrate Bilbo Baggins’ (cuddly old Ian Holm) birthday alongside grizzled Gandalf Greyhame (a show stealing turn from Sir Ian McKellen) in a joyfully depicted party. The childlike wonder of the diminutive hobbits is brilliantly captured by fresh faced character actors – the pick of which is the wide-eyed Elijah Wood as Frodo.

As Frodo and his friends journey from their hobbit-holes to re-convene with Gandalf, evil creeps into their world. Sinister wraiths haunt their journey – a frightening combination of squealing ghostliness and earthy, worm-ridden humanity. They are just part of the horrendous army being assembled by Sauron – one of the film’s greatest set-pieces is an incomparable combination of CGI, costume and make-up which sees orcs and goblins being torn from the earth, armed and sent out into battle against the forces of good. Sadly one of the only duff notes is a computer-generated cave troll which battles the group in the mines of Moria – here, the technology has dated badly and the scene jars somewhat.

As the hobbits continue their quest, their ranks are swelled by Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen), a ranger with a hidden past, and various other characters who attempt to help them on their way or hinder them in their quest to destroy the ring. The best of these is the balrog, whose battle with Gandalf creates the film’s standout moment and most memorable dialogue: “You shall not pass.”

Jackson’s vision of Middle Earth is astoundingly well conceived, meaning that all but the purest of purists were delighted with his version of Tolkien’s world. Relatively little of the source material was left by the wayside (I certainly didn’t grieve the loss of Tom Bombadil) and in New Zealand, the director found the true star of his picture: majestic, epic and beautiful landscapes provide some of the most stunning scenery ever captured on film.

The next instalment of The Lord of the Rings, The Two Towers, has already been reviewed here.

THE IMDB TOP 50 CHALLENGE #21 The Matrix

The Matrix was the first film I ever really wrote about. At university, I produced an A-grade essay on the editing of the government lobby shoot-out scene – an essay I’d sorely love to read today. Sadly, it was produced back in the day when such pieces were still produced with pen and ink - the paper copy has not survived the interceding years.

Thinking back to those days, it’s almost impossible to believe that mobile phones and home internet were uncommon. Despite that, The Matrix has not dated at all, rooted as it is in a world of technology and special effects which were revolutionary at the time – but remain influential and impressive today. Even the memory of the inferior sequels cannot sully The Matrix’s reputation.

The basis of the film’s success is its universal central question: what if the world around us is not quite as it seems? For hacker Thomas Anderson (Keanu Reeves) it certainly is not. Unhappy in his job and his life, he spends his free time searching online for the mythical Morpheus –zen-like leader of a rebellious underground alliance

Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne) eventually makes contact with Anderson (better known as Neo) and reveals the truth: the world he knows is a construct designed by an artificial intelligence which has enslaved mankind in order to farm their bio-electrical energy. Suspended in an amniotic gloop, their brains are plugged into The Matrix and kept alive by piping virtual reality representations of a world which long ago ceased to exist directly into their cerebrums.

Morpheus’ band of rebels is mankind’s last stand – representatives from the last human city of Zion waging a desperate battle against the machines to preserve the future of man. They literally unplug Neo from The Matrix thanks to Morpheus’ unshakeable belief that he is ‘the one’ – a messianic figure who can rescue the human race from their virtual purgatory. But perhaps Morpheus’ faith is misplaced?

The Matrix is magnificent – the greatest sci-fi film since the similarly grungy Blade Runner. But it’s not merely a derivative tribute to Ridley Scott’s classic. Instead, it adds layer upon layer of ideas and tropes rarely seen in the genre: spiritual meditations, kung-fu, punk fashion and numerous literary and religious references. These elements are not thrown into the mix at the expense of more traditional science fiction. Rather, The Matrix utilises new camera techniques and styles, creates a number of distinct worlds in which its action takes place and melds human bodies with alien technology in truly horrifying fashion.

The action takes place largely in a virtual reality world devoid of colour. Indeed, the lifeless grey cityscapes are tinged green so as to appear as though they’re being viewed through a monitor. Populated by characterless characters such as the terrifyingly monotone Agent Smith (Hugo Weaving), the world of The Matrix is only marginally bettered by the grimy existence eked out below ground by Morpheus and his band of rebels. When the worlds collide, however, the results are spectacular...

Whether the Wachowskis invented or merely popularised ‘bullet time’ technology is hotly debated. Certainly they were the first to bring it to a mass audience. And how. The fight scenes in this film are some of the finest ever filmed. Key cast members spent four months in martial arts training prior to filming and it shows. Allied to their undoubted skills and some spectacular choreography, the ‘bullet time’ technique elevates the battles here well above the average, creating spectacular camera angles, sweeps and stunts never before possible.

The technique sees dozens of cameras filming the same object from various angles. Cut and spliced together, it’s possible to edit these different frames into one continuous flow, around which the cameras seem to move. The effect is evident from the opening scene in which a leather-clad Trinity (Carrie Ann Moss) leaps in the air and kicks a policeman in the chest. As she hangs frozen, the camera seems to sweep 360 degrees around her before she lands her killer blow. ‘Bullet time’ has gone on to be used in dozens of subsequent movies, but has never been used as effectively, and with such impact, as here – not least in an iconic scene of slo-mo bullet dodging. 

People have rightly lauded Christopher Nolan for bringing brains back to blockbusters with the likes of The Dark Knight and Inception, but the Wachowskis got there first. The Matrix is a densely plotted and philosophical film full of big questions and bigger action sequences, featuring an ensemble cast at the top of their respective games. Sadly the duo never quite lived up to their promise. Let’s hope that their next picture, the densely plotted, big budget Cloud Atlas can recapture the cinematic promise they showed in this groundbreaking genre classic.

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.