There’s something comforting about stepping back into Peter Jackson’s Middle Earth for the first instalment of the prequel series The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012). Having grown up with the Lord of the Rings trilogy, there is an instant sense of nostalgia and familiarity which feels like coming home.
An adaptation of Tolkien’s shorter, lighter and lets be honest, less serious novel, the first movie in a new trilogy follows the adventures of a young Bilbo Baggins as he sets out on a quest with a familiar wizard and a group of rowdy dwarfs as they seek to reclaim their homeland and heritage.
From the outset, the tone is markedly different from The Lord of the Rings, with a lot more humour and messing about. Although the novel sets up the later books with its introduction of Gollum and the finding of the One Ring by Bilbo, it’s more of a straightforward adventure tale, involving orcs, dragons, and trolls. What Jackson and company have done with the Hobbit films is use them not only as a vehicle to tell the story of the book, but also to feed into the overall Middle Earth Universe, creating new content to extend and enhance the story.
The first movie is mostly used as an introduction to the main quest and give a history of the different main characters. It moves along at a brisk, entertaining pace, taking in beautiful Middle Earth landscapes as it goes. There are also a few exciting set-pieces, including dinner with a few trolls and a breakneck rabbit-chase.
Unlike the Lord of the Rings films, the focus is on one group and journey, this is essentially Bilbo’s and the Dwarfs story. Its important then that the audience immediately takes to these characters, and here is where my problem with the film lies. Just to get it out-of-the-way, Martin Freeman as Bilbo is a perfect choice. Despite being strongly biased towards him (I’ve never seen him in anything I haven’t enjoyed) he brings a touching humour and grumpiness to Bilbo that makes his transformation from reluctant host to enthusiastic adventurer completely believable. Gandalf is already so well established from the previous films that he instantly comes to life, the issue lies with the Dwarfs.
When you have such a large cast of characters, it is essential that each is given sufficient time to impress themselves on the mind of the viewer. The problem with the majority of the Dwarfs in the film is that they begin to blend, other than a select few who are given a little more attention, they are merely bodies to be thrown about, voices to create rabble. The Lord of the Rings trilogy had an abundance of different characters, each with their own unique traits and personalities, let’s just hope that over the course of the three films of the Hobbit trilogy we will be able to get to know the Dwarf troop a little better so they make a more lasting impression.
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012) is a welcome return to the world of Middle Earth and is a strong first instalment to a new franchise. Although not as dark or serious as the trilogy it preludes, it still provides laughs, thrills and scares, and does a great job of expanding the Tolkien Universe, both in a cinematic and literary sense. Unexpected, but very welcome.
★★★☆☆
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