Peter Jackson brings us back to Middle Earth in the tale that
preceded the hit Lord of the Rings trilogy. This time, the single book has been broken
into three separate films. It’s a good
movie with decent visuals. It is
however, filled with padding that could’ve either been edited into two movies
or at the very least given another round through the editor’s booth.
Bilbo Baggins reminisces to Frodo about his adventures with
Gandalf and the company of dwarves. As
he is remembering he turns into a younger version of himself, played by Martin
Freeman. Bilbo recalls being hired as a burglar by Gandalf, played by Sir Ian
McKellan, to help a group of dwarves reclaim their homeland from the dragon
Smaug. He faces many challenges and goes out of his comfort-zone for this great
adventure.
Martin Freeman does a fine job as Bilbo. It’s great to see
many of the old characters again. Andy Serkis as Gollum is great and the CGI on
him has improved sharply. The problem is that the new characters are fairly
forgettable at this point. Even after lots and lots of padding, the dwarves are
easy to forget.
The length of this movie causes a major problem. The long
hours of The Lord of the Rings movies
worked because the threat of Sauron was so immense. In The Hobbit, the threat is localized to the characters themselves
and is harder to identify with- a dragon that stole the gold of the dwarves.
It’s not nearly as epic. The simple fact
is that The Lord of the Rings trilogy
raised the bar really high and it’s going to take a lot to get to that level again.
If you are a fan of the book you will enjoy this movie. If you enjoyed The Lord of the Rings movies you will most likely find this one to
be the weakest of the series. The series
still might get better. The dragon Smaug was barely shown, leaving me to really
anticipate The Hobbit: The Desolation of
Smaug. I have a feeling there is a lot more action yet to come. At the very least see it as a matinee.
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