The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012)
A younger and more reluctant Hobbit, Bilbo Baggins, sets out on an "unexpected journey" to the Lonely Mountain with a spirited group of Dwarves to reclaim their stolen mountain home from a dragon named Smaug. Short synopsis of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey taken from IMDB.com
I dragged my heels a bit when it comes to this movie. I must confess, part of it was because I did see some of the film online while it was still in the theaters. Funny story: one night, I happened to flip on the TV and was scanning the channels when I came upon an old show I hadn't seen in years. I don't even recall what show it was. Well when the advertisements came on, there was one for this USB thing-a-ma-bob that you plug into your computer and it gets you like, I don't know, 50,000 TV channels via the internet. All for just $14.95! What a steal, I thought.
So I looked online. Could such a late-night TV offer be for real? Surely somebody must be aware of this amazing gadget. Or else why isn't it being sold during primetime, and with a higher price? Or at my local Walmart? All valid questions, you opine. Yeah, you're right about that.
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It comes to find out that, sadly, the USB thing was a scam. Just a regular thumbdrive with a list of URL addresses of websites that show programming, and most of them from foreign countries. The oldest trick in the book, you might say. Sell 'em something they can get for free, and it isn't worth much even at that price.
But in my Googling for this mystery device, I came upon a website that did offer free TV, of a sort. It had... shall we say "less than legal" content. Like pirated copies of movies then running in theaters. And I, being excited to see it, watched about 40 minutes worth of The Hobbit, An Unexpected Journey.
Now you'd think having seen some of the movie (and some of the better parts, I've discovered) would make a person want to see the whole thing. And back around the time this happened, I did. But the night we went together to the movies, my wife and I saw Les Miserables instead. As I said in that review, I'd have rather have seen Hobbit then. But I've changed my mind.
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| Made this extra large so the text would be readable. / Source: BridgetFinnegan.com |
"What?!" - you exclaim. "You didn't highly rate Les Miz," - you point out. Oh contraire, mon fraire! (there's that small French joke again, for those of you keeping track) I said Les Miz was good, but just not my cup of tea. On the other hand, I didn't really love The Hobbit.
I'll try to explain in brief. You see, I love the book. And I am one of those who thinks Peter Jackson didn't do The Lord of the Rings full justice. So when I saw the little tweaks that were made to The Hobbit, which I would be quick to argue is a better novel in of itself than the Lord of the Rings trilogy of books, I was not enthused.
Since the movie is now out even in Redbox, I'll skip giving you a true review, per-se. I'd assume you've either seen it and will A) vehemently disagree with me because you loved it, or B) quietly agree with my assessment, or C) wonder why I even bother, and not care. Be what it may, I didn't love the movie. For one thing, and let me point out that I don't know if everybody who watched it on DVD had or will have this experience, but it seemed to me that the audio leveling was off. The music and sounds effects were REALLY LOUD, and the dialogue was too soft. So I missed things that were said sometimes. Of course, I didn't watch it on the absolute best of modern TVs. But that old wannabe flat screen (bought back when TVs were still normal in outer shape, but the screen was flat, and not convex like from the 1950s onward) does pretty good with other movies. Maybe on a modern home theater set-up, Hobbit is great. But it was a bit much on my TV.
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| Except for the unnecessary gross-out humor and the unwanted re-writing of the plot, these three were one of the brighter spots in the film. Until Gandalf broke the rock, that is. These guys are cagey about the sun because they'll be turned to stone in broad daylight, but they have no conception that dawn is on the horizon, and on top of all that, it isn't even deception on the part of Baggins that does them in, but a cheap rock-breaking bit? Come on! / Source: BlueAndGoldOnline.org |
As for the story, I'll avoid dragging through the details that were changed that I didn't care for. I'm gonna go with a short and sweet version of what I didn't like, and you can just keep in the back of your mind the fact that I didn't appreciate the tinkering with the plot in most respects. If I cared to hack at it, I'd do a "Dual Review." But those are a lot of work as it is, so you're stuck with this.
Let me put one thing out of the way right quick. I did like some parts of this movie. I liked the scene with Bilbo and Smeagol/Gollum, where they have the battle of the riddles. That was one of my favorite parts of the book, and the translation of it was decent (not what I had pictured, but what is in a movie made from a book?). And there were other bits and pieces in the film that I also liked. But the whole thing taken together? No, not so much.
So what was my assessment on the movie's flaws, you query? I thought it was too much noise, too much fighting/violence, and too much running. Yes, the book had plenty of excitement, but it was also well paced. It seemed to me like the filmmakers were more interested in making an action flick than they were in translating a really good book to the silver screen. Yes, many have been guilty of doing the same thing to a myriad of other books which went from some hard-working author's pen through to the box office. But this was just... ugh.
I think that the movie would have retained more of its natural excitement if they had kept the actual chase scenes to themselves, and not added any out of thin air just for the sake of the thrills. Like the whole chase with Radagash the Brown and the orcs. Sure, that sled pulled by rabbits was cool to look at, but if it had been left out and then later we'd seen the chase scene from the goblins in their underground city, the latter would have had more impact. By the time we get to the end, I was kinda "chase-scened" out, I guess.
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| What is it with dragons and bling? Anybody tell me? That is gold he's lying on by the way. Just in case you mistook it for a pile of Cream of Wheat, with somebody's jewelry accidentally dropped in the pot by mistake. / Source: TheOneRing.net |
Speaking of Radagash, the scene where he goes to the fortress and encounters the necromancer? Not only not in the book, but unneeded. We're trying to attach this movie to the Lord of the Rings group of films? Why? The Hobbit novel stands on its own, just fine and dandy (does anybody say "dandy anymore?). Note to film producers: please don't re-write for the sake of dumbing down for the masses. Movies that treat their audience like intelligent viewers get more respect, in my opinion. Even a dumb movie that expects its audience can put two and two together is better than one that tries to connect all the dots for you. The Star Wars prequels suffered from this same problem.
Then there is the fighting and violence. The beheadings are quite PG-13 (once upon a time they would have easily been rated "R," but we live in a different world now, which is sometimes good and sometimes not so much), and they lose impact. One powerful beheading scene invests a film with emotion, whether that be empathy for a character we cared for, joy for the defeat of a hated baddie, or even plain old disgust at the loss of someones head. Too many head cuttings leaves an audience a bit spent, in my opinion. It loses meaning. The same with the arrow-in-the-face thing. How many orcs got arrows in the eyeball in this flick? I lost count pretty quick. Even Legolas didn't do that every time, and he was a kick-butt archer.
OK, yeah I know, I sound a bit milk-toast here, but I really think the movie just tired too hard. They gotta make it a trilogy for some reason, and then they pad out the contents with lots of extraneous action scenes? And I won't even go off on my CGI rant over the unnecessarily added villain in the form of the giant white orc. But I will say, if I wanted to look at video game badguys, I'd play a video game, folks.
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| Somebody worked really hard on this CGI, so we gotta admire it for all its worth, dang it! But that's the economy we live in. Pixels are cheaper than makeup, and eminently cheaper than a good dialogue coach. / Source: ComicVine.com |
Now I liked the Lord of the Rings movies, for the most part. I am quite fond of The Fellowship of the Ring. I think they took what was admittedly the weakest of the book trilogy and made it very approachable. The changes helped there, not hurt. Purists will scoff, especially considering I have spent time above in whining about An Unexpected Journey's wanderings from canon. But I like that movie best of Jackson's forays into Middle Earth. What Fellowship does, it does well. The other two that follow are good, but I think the books are clearly better in those cases. Tolkien took awhile to build up steam, but he really got there by the end. An Unexpected Journey, on the other hand, is too much steam and too little substance, in my opinion. Take that for what it is worth.
Oh, and to answer my usual question, I think it was worth a Redbox rental, but I'm satisfied that I didn't spend big theater money on seeing it, or even cheap seats prices. The Redbox fee was worth finding out about it. Call it a curiosity soother, rather than a truly entertaining experience.
Oh, and if you are at all curious, click here to go see my review of The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Parting Comment:
Two videos today. A warning, the first one, though it calls out the foibles in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Cash-In, has some bleeped profanity with asterisked (and Obelixed?) captions too. Could have made their point without those, I think. So keep that in mind if/when watching it.
And since I put in my small reference to Les Misérables, here is an Honest Trailer for that one. Wish this had been out when I did the review.
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