Skip to main content

The Hobbit, Part One, reviewed

SPOILER ALERT

I loved The Hobbit when I read it as a child.  It remains one of my favourite books as a consequence, and, though I have not read it in decades, it retains a hold on my imagination, though I no longer clearly recall the conclusion very well.  I also enjoyed The Lord of the Rings, the books, but not as much, and probably skimmed them over.  They felt too adult to me then.  Now, I am older, and came to the screening of Peter Jackson's fourth Tolkien adaptation with much anticipation, not least because his first trilogy of films was brilliant - arguably the most faithful and beautifully executed of any literary adaptation for film.

Jackson has tried new things here, technically - 3D, and a faster rate of film speed - and neither, to my mind, caused any of the aesthetic or medical problems some audience members have reported.  The film did not look shoddy nor did it occasion nausea.  However, I cannot say the film is as much a triumph as before.  At times the movie is magnificent.  Sometimes it lags, though.

The main challenge was always going to be that this adventure was on a smaller scale, and, literally, a smaller, quainter map.  The enemy, rather than being a sort of Satan, is a mere dragon, and there are no major battles.  Jackson has tinkered with the storyline a bit, to very much put this back into the world of the later books that Tolkien wrote, papering over the cracks, and deepening the sense of dramatic irony: now Gandalf is very much the foreshadowing prophet of doom, sensing a "darkness" coming across Middle Earth; and, in a startling scene, one of the major villains of Lord of the Rings appears.

Jackson has done a very good job of tying it all in, though the first ten minutes are confusing, switching too soon from a narrated, epic event, to Frodo and Bilbo.  Martin Freeman as young Bilbo grows on one - at first he seems to be comically mugging all the time; but later, he manages to be physical enough to believably fight orcs, and smart enough to outwit Gollum (the highlight of this first instalment in the new trilogy).

The dwarfs are too many, but the few who get speaking parts are mainly enjoyable.  It remains annoying that all the bad guys and monsters have "working class" English accents, as if trolls are all "chavs".  Also, where are the women characters?  There is only one in the whole film.  And I found some of the massacres of the trolls, goblins, and orcs disquieting and a little brutal, though I realise they are "monsters" and I suppose fair game for our heroes.

My main concern is that I can't believe Smaug is such a force of power and evil that all the dwarf forces could not defeat him (with all their skill and mastery how did they not build a fortress impregnable to dragon fire)?  Jackson has depicted the dragon (barely glimpsed) as a sort of flying atom bomb of destructive force.

In terms of emotional beats, the first film ends with Bilbo having bravely earned his keep as the 14th member of the party, the heart-of-gold "burglar" who ironically spares Gollum and burgles the most important ring in the world.  Gandalf seems older here than in the earlier films, though actually he is meant to be 60 years or so younger, but we must make allowances for real time.  The action scenes are impeccable and as exciting as anything in the earlier films, perhaps at times even more so - and the choreographic sequences are up their with the best of Spielberg.  Jackson is clearly a mainstream film-maker of genius.  As well, and as before, the use of the landscape is simply ravishing.

No one who has ever read The Hobbit can, should, or will, miss this film, which really warrants viewing in the cinema over the holidays.  It seems to me to be too frightening for young children; at times I was terrified.  While sometimes worthy, plodding, and a little forced, in general, this reminds us how poor the Potter films were - and will be one of the most popular and treasured movies of this decade.


--- Todd Swift

Comments

bright star said…
Just seen it and agree about the violence and that younger kids should wait a few years before seing it. It was grat tho and I am looking forward to the next film. As for women characters Tilkien was nor that free with good female characters .Does it matter,speking as a feminist I don't think so.

Popular posts from this blog

CLIVE WILMER'S THOM GUNN SELECTED POEMS IS A MUST-READ

THAT HANDSOME MAN  A PERSONAL BRIEF REVIEW BY TODD SWIFT I could lie and claim Larkin, Yeats , or Dylan Thomas most excited me as a young poet, or even Pound or FT Prince - but the truth be told, it was Thom Gunn I first and most loved when I was young. Precisely, I fell in love with his first two collections, written under a formalist, Elizabethan ( Fulke Greville mainly), Yvor Winters triad of influences - uniquely fused with an interest in homerotica, pop culture ( Brando, Elvis , motorcycles). His best poem 'On The Move' is oddly presented here without the quote that began it usually - Man, you gotta go - which I loved. Gunn was - and remains - so thrilling, to me at least, because so odd. His elegance, poise, and intelligence is all about display, about surface - but the surface of a panther, who ripples with strength beneath the skin. With Gunn, you dressed to have sex. Or so I thought.  Because I was queer (I maintain the right to lay claim to that

IQ AND THE POETS - ARE YOU SMART?

When you open your mouth to speak, are you smart?  A funny question from a great song, but also, a good one, when it comes to poets, and poetry. We tend to have a very ambiguous view of intelligence in poetry, one that I'd say is dysfunctional.  Basically, it goes like this: once you are safely dead, it no longer matters how smart you were.  For instance, Auden was smarter than Yeats , but most would still say Yeats is the finer poet; Eliot is clearly highly intelligent, but how much of Larkin 's work required a high IQ?  Meanwhile, poets while alive tend to be celebrated if they are deemed intelligent: Anne Carson, Geoffrey Hill , and Jorie Graham , are all, clearly, very intelligent people, aside from their work as poets.  But who reads Marianne Moore now, or Robert Lowell , smart poets? Or, Pound ?  How smart could Pound be with his madcap views? Less intelligent poets are often more popular.  John Betjeman was not a very smart poet, per se.  What do I mean by smart?

"I have crossed oceans of time to find you..."

In terms of great films about, and of, love, we have Vertigo, In The Mood for Love , and Casablanca , Doctor Zhivago , An Officer and a Gentleman , at the apex; as well as odder, more troubling versions, such as Sophie's Choice and  Silence of the Lambs .  I think my favourite remains Bram Stoker's Dracula , with the great immortal line "I have crossed oceans of time to find you...".