Moreover, if there was Guinness Book of Records category for the tallest person ever to play Bilbo Baggins, I would probably win it. Although I was never a member of the Cambridge University Tolkien Society (I am only willing to allow my geekiness to get to a certain level) I did join forces with them when I took on four roles for the Cambridge University Tolkien Society's Charity Reading of the script of the BBC Radio 4 Adaptation of Lord of the Rings at Borders bookstore in Cambridge (sadly now closed for reasons which I can assure you are not connected to the quality of my performance) back in 2004.
I also played Gaffer Gamgee, in spite of the fact that at one point the two characters appeared in the same scene, meaning that any innocent customers walking into the bookshop at that point, hoping for a quiet afternoon of browsing, would have instead been greeted with the baffling sight of me wielding a microphone and interacting with myself in two different accents. Probably not the strangest thing I did during my university career, but it's up there!
In short, I am a fan, and feel extremely protective of all things Tolkien. Which means that I was getting increasingly concerned by the mixed nature of the reviews of the first in Peter Jackson's Hobbit trilogy, especially the complaints about the slow pace, not least because Julie and I had inadvertently booked a 10pm showing of the film last night after a long and tiring week at work, rather than the 8pm showing we had thought we were booking. Having waited the better part of a quarter of a century for this cinematic spectacle, was there a chance that I was going to end up falling asleep in the middle of it? This did happen to me fairly recently in the Russell Crowe version of Robin Hood (although that was in the middle of the afternoon, but I had better say no more about that cinematic travesty, even though I am sure Russell, being an amiable chap, would take the criticism in good spirit!)
As it turned out, there was no need for a power nap, even during the Rivendell scenes. I think the negative focus of a lot of the reviews stemmed from the fact that many critics were expecting a classic epic "magnificent octopus" (as Baldrick would put it) on the same level as Lord of the Rings. Quite why they had set their expectations so high is a mystery to me, bearing in mind how previous franchises that have sought to resurrect themselves after a gap of a decade or more (which is probably a fairer standard by which to judge the film) have fared. True, James Bond has managed to successfully reinvent himself twice now, but the longest period we have ever had between Bond films is six years.
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is not quite as good as any of Jackson's Lord of the Rings films. However, it is significantly better than any of the three Star Wars prequels, Terminator 3 or 4, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Bollocks, Richard Lester's Return of the Musketeers, whatever the name of that Brandon Routh Superman film was, or even The Godfather part III. Jackson managed to recapture the spirit of the previous films far more successfully after a gap of eleven years than the Wachowski Brothers managed with the Matrix after just four. And I absolutely loved it, in spite of its flaws.
Getting the negative stuff out of the way first, I will say that I will not be watching the next two films in 3D, nor will I be watching this one in 3D again. It added nothing, it irritated my eyes, and New Zealand/Middle Earth is just as attractive in 2D. I didn't see the film in 48 frames per second so can't comment on that, but I have to say that the number of different formats in which one can watch the film is now verging on the ridiculous (although my attempt to find a cinema that was showing it as a black and white silent movie with a smell-o-vision option was unsuccessful!)
The second major criticism of the film has been its length, and I do wonder whether instead of releasing an Extended Edition of the film on DVD as per the LOTR films it might be worth Jackson thinking about releasing a truncated version! When answering questions about the upcoming LOTR films back in 1999, Jackson commented that his rule was that every scene had to advance the plot in some way. It is something he seems to have since forgotten. Let's put it this way, if he was making LOTR now, he would not only have included Tom Bombadil, but would have included ten minutes of flashbacks to explain where he got his inspiration for his "brilliant" songs and rhymes (no doubt the track title for that scene on the DVD would have been "A Shortcut to Mushrooms"). I actually think that two films might have been the better way forward, and not just because I now have to wait another year to see my favourite character from the book (apart from Bilbo) - Beorn, the bear man (to be played by the suitably big, hairy and Swedish Mikael Persbrandt).
True, the Hobbit is shorter than any of the LOTR films, but it has more padding, only some of which really adds anything to the story. The Erebor-based prologue does a good job of setting the scene, and the new wizard Radagast the Brown manages to just about stay on the right side of that very thin line between eccentric and annoying, partly because former Dr Who Doctor Sylvester McCoy plays him with such enthusiasm. But then again, with a sledge driven by giant CGI rabbits (which Tolkien forgot to mention) as a prop, who wouldn't be enthusiastic? If David Tennant is starting to get sick of doing those godawful Virgin Media ads, he may be reassured by the fact that it could be worse, bearing in mind that McCoy appears to have spent the twenty odd years since he left the show living in the woods being crapped on by owls.
But the whole sub-plot involving Azog, an albino orc with a hook for an arm (Middle Earth's answer to Abu Hamza) could quite easily have been dropped, although I did enjoy Barry Humphries as the Goblin King. Yes, that's right, Dame Edna Everage is playing the Goblin King, although in fact he is more like Sir Les Patterson reincarnated as a giant, angry scrotum. And whilst Elijah Wood's cameo as Frodo is fun, it is screaming out as being something that would have been better saved up for the DVD edition.
Plus I think that Jackson has become overreliant on CGI this time round. Surprisingly for someone who is such a big fan of Ray Harryhausen, Jackson seems to have forgotten that CGI is not the only instrument in the filmmaking toolbox. The most profound thing that Simon Pegg has ever tweeted (ok...possibly the only profound thing that Simon Pegg has ever tweeted) was when he was talking about showing his daughter the Empire Strikes Back. It was the first time she had ever seen a puppet, non-CGI Yoda, and her immediate reaction was "oh...he's real"). Take as another example this scene from Jason and the Argonauts. This could be done more realistically today (as much as a fight involving skeletons can ever be described as realistic), but would it be as much fun?
But enough griping. I was transported back into Middle Earth, and quite frankly I loved almost every minute of it. Starting with the performances, I find it difficult to find fault with any of them. I had been touting Martin Freeman as the perfect younger Bilbo for almost a decade before he actually got cast, and I can totally understand why Jackson decided to reschedule filming to accommodate Freeman so that he could take time off to film the second series of BBC's Sherlock (as a devoted fan of both Sherlock Holmes and Tolkien, I am almost in despair that I will have to wait another whole year before seeing Martin Freeman's Bilbo interact with his Sherlock co-star Benedict Cumberbatch as the sinister dragon, Smaug).
Freeman is far better suited to this role than he was to Arthur Dent in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, partly because to my mind no-one could ever displace Simon Jones in that role in my book, whilst although I loved Ian Holm as Bilbo in LOTR, he is not the only actor who has previously played the role well (and no, I am not thinking of me here, I actually had in mind Paul Daneman, who played him in the BBC Radio 4 version of the Hobbit, opposite the fantastically named and wonderfully malevolent looking Francis de Wolff as Smaug). Bilbo not only needed to be a good actor who could handle both comedy and drama (Freeman is gifted with a naturally funny face) but also needed to be able to pass for a young Ian Holm. The only other actor I can think of who might have managed it is Paul Giamatti.
I was a little more sceptical when I heard about Richard Armitage being cast as Thorin, the leader of the unruly pack of dwarves who accompany Bilbo on his quest (the handsome leading man was a fan favourite to be cast in the films, but most people were expecting him to be playing Bard the Bowman, rather than a character who, in his last cinematic incarnation, looked like this). Whilst the Lord of the Rings cast ended up being pretty much ideal, give or take an unnecessarily camp elf or two, having heard more since about who had previously been offered roles in the films (Nicolas Cage was offered Aragorn, which would have been about on a par with casting Ronnie Corbett as James Bond or Bruce Forsyth as the Godfather), I have come to the conclusion that this may have been due as much to luck as anything else.
I had always imagined Thorin as older and sturdier, and it seems that original director Guillermo Del Toro was thinking more along my lines, having been considering Ian McShane and even the legendary Brian Blessed for the role (Blessed seems to have been born to play Tolkienic roles, but the only one he has played to date is, aptly enough bearing in mind his bombastic style, Farmer Giles of Ham!) It is a shame we will probably never see Del Toro's vision of Middle Earth, but I suspect that if he had stayed on as director the critics would have been lamenting the fact that Jackson didn't come back. Truth to tell, my ideal Hobbit movie would have been made in the 1980s and directed by Terry Gilliam or Rob Reiner, but we can't always have what we want!
But of course both Guillermo and I probably underestimate the proportion of LOTR's audience that was made up of swooning teenage girls desperate for another shot of Orlando Bloom surfing down the trunk of an Oliphant, and they needed to have someone good looking to keep them occupied until Bloom's return (a new still of Legolas from the next film has been released, which suggests that elves, whilst blessed with the gift of eternal life, are truly crap when it comes to Movember). Fortunately Armitage, as well as being a bit of a moody, broody hunk, is also a very fine actor (if eerily similar to LOTR's Sean Bean in his acting style - which is appropriate, since he is fulfilling a similar function in the new trilogy, as the token suspicious, morally ambiguous chuffer with the northern accent which every Tolkien adaptation needs). Armitage perfectly captures the essence of Thorin's personality (he is essentially the fantasy equivalent of the teacher who is assigned to play the role of bad cop on school trips and remind the children that they are "not there to have fun"!)
The rest of the dwarves do not get quite as much time for character development, although they provide much of the film's humour (the tone is markedly lighter this time round and the humour works better than in LOTR, in that Jackson finds other ways to relieve the tension without having to rely on dwarf burping every single time) and the scene with the dwarves invading Bilbo's home is genuinely hilarious - amazingly, the dwarves song about destroying Bilbo's crockery from the book actually makes it into the movie. In fairness Jackson does do better than Tolkien in differentiating the dwarves.
There's Balin, the gnarled, cautious one, played deftly by Ken Stott, exactly how I always imagined the character. Stott, who is evidently enjoying taking a break from playing VERY VERY ANGRY COPS, at times seems to be channeling the spirit of Finlay Currie, who played a lot of parts like this in 1950s epics and would no doubt have taken on this role in the Ray Harryhausen version (don't know who would have played Thorin, when I started thinking about it I couldn't get past the idea of Robert Newton lamenting the loss of the Aaaarghkenstone).
There are the younger, cheeky ones (Fili and Kili, filling in for Merry and Pippin).
There's the twinkly Irish one (Bofur, played James Nesbitt - presumably part leprechaun).
And I particularly liked the fussy, camomile tea loving, lettuce chomping one (Dori, played by Mark Hadlow).
The rest get less of a chance to stand out, but as there are thirteen of them that is not surprising, and they were never all going to be iconic movie characters in the way that all of the members of the Fellowship of the Ring were.
I would have liked to see more of the "fat dwarf", Bombur (aka Obelix), who I don't think got a single line. And while I am on the subject, I have never been one to plead anti-ginger prejudice at the drop of a hat, but I would just like to point out the following:
- literary characters who are described as red haired in the book but aren't in the film version: Edward Cullen in Twilight, Christian Grey in the Fifty Shades of Grey film (if Eddie Redmayne is cast, as rumoured);
- literary characters who aren't described as red haired in the book but are in the film version: Bombur.
I am not sure we ginger folk are getting the better side of that deal!
There are also plenty of actors making a welcome return from LOTR. Ian McKellen is clearly relishing being back as Gandalf the Grey (scruffier, wilier and more fun than Gandalf the White). Andy Serkis' scenes as Gollum are very true to the book and are a particular highlight of the second half of the film. Seeing him again was like coming across an old friend (which probably says a lot about the company I keep). And it was nice to see returns from Hugo Weaving (Elrond - less of a stroppybottom than he was in LOTR), Cate Blanchett (Galadriel - still an insufferable know it all telepath) and Christopher Lee (Saruman - already a bit of a sarcastic so-and-so but not yet the thoroughly evil old bastard he turns into later).
Howard Shore returns to do the score, which is terrific (at least as good as LOTR's was). Fortunately Peter Jackson seems to have resisted the urge to include this little gem from Leonard Nimoy on the soundtrack (a perfect illustration of why Vulcans should avoid going into popular music). I would have bought the soundtrack even if I had hated the movie - the dwarves "Far over the Misty Mountains Cold" is a haunting highlight.
To sum up then, this is a very good film indeed. And in there somewhere, there is a great film. Imagine if Wizard of Oz had been released with all of the scenes which were actually in the film included, but with another hour of additional material including flashbacks, sub-plots, an extra wizard and a secondary villain. This is how The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey feels. Everything that is in the books (the bits with the dwarves at Bag End, Gollum, the trolls) are done exactly the way that I would have wanted. The additional stuff dilutes it a bit, but doesn't go as far as taking away the magic altogether. Peter Jackson ignoring the basic rules of filmmaking still makes a far better film than most filmmakers who adhere to it rigorously. If you didn't enjoy LOTR, you will hate this. If you did enjoy LOTR, you will find a lot more to love than to hate. Being back in Middle Earth is great. Can't wait for that pesky dragon to show up in 2013.
