As I said earlier Bilbo Baggins, the uncle of Frodo Baggins the protagonist of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, is now the main protagonist portrayed by Martin Freeman. At first at around the first act of the film or maybe just the very beginning of the film he seems kind of uninteresting and boring, he always just seemed very reluctant and just quiet to himself. But to be fair the I think maybe the film or the original story intended to write him that way, because once the story gets going and there are things happening he actually becomes a more engaging character. When you see him on his adventure with the dwarves we learn more about his personality, his behaviors, his chemistry with the dwarves, and how the quest is affecting him as a person. Plus actor Martin Freeman portrays the character exactly how he sounded written. A lot of the cast in any film of the Lord of the Rings series always portrays their character as true as possible making them seem real and ready to leap off the screen. Being new to this cast, Martin Freeman is more than welcome to being one of the many dedicated character actors in the series. We see the return of Gandalf, again portrayed by Ian McKellen. Gandalf is a bit different than he was in the trilogy. He is more calm now, a lot nicer and humble, and a perhaps a bit goofy at times. But in the end he is written well enough and still performed greatly for us to still care about him. Thorin Oakenshield, the main lead dwarf played by Richard Armitage, is probably the least interesting character in the film. I say this because he is the stereotypical no nonsense, distrustful, and ignorant leader, who will not give our hero a chance and is constantly prejudice against him, and this is all because he had a tragic backstory, he bad past, he wants revenge against someone, he has pain that he has been hiding all these years, the works we've seen this before in other characters from other films. Nothing new is there to change it. The dwarves on the other hand are pretty enjoyable. They pretty much have all the same personality being slobbish, a bunch of oafs, clumsy, bold, aggressive, and mischievous and while that may seem tired, they manage to pull off being overall enjoyable whenever they are on screen. Gollum (Andy Serkis) also makes an appearance once more! By the beginning of the scene involving him though he is played more for laughs, though funny, by the end it would seem disappointing not to get any sign of the struggling he goes through that makes him so three-dimensional and real. Luckily near the end of the scene they exploit it beautifully. There's a great scene which involves Gollum that highly reminds me of the climax from Silence of the Lambs where we do see a deep emotional and troubled side within him that makes him seem very sympathetic and it is all done through his facial expressions. But also we get to see the savage and dark side of him that the Ring of course planted in him. The whole ending of his scene is just great and is just a roller coaster of emotions that you get you surprised about the way you feel all the time. Once again a scene involving Gollum is almost done to perfection! Other appearances include Galadriel (Cate Blanchett), Elrond (Hugo Weaving), Saruman (Christopher Lee), and surprisingly Frodo Baggins (Elijah Wood), they only appear briefly though but the actors did their job to portray them well enough and briefly to remind us why we love these characters.
One other thing I feel I have to note is that I HIGHLY miss the prosthetics and make-up used for the creatures in the original trilogy for the creatures. Sure it was mostly orcs, and here we have trolls, ogres, and goblins but they are all CGI. I have no problem with CGI affects as long as it looks outstanding and real, case in point Gollum. There are even orcs that appear in this film that are CGI as well! It just seems so distracting that while in the trilogy they went all their way to make the creatures to look as real and plausible and possible and here they give in to CGI and it is all obvious CGI. It just really baffles me! The only part of the film where I remembered really enjoying the CGI was when they were witnessing the battle against those rock giants and that looked unbelievable. That looked very real and cool to look at, but if you're like me who enjoyed the prosthetic make-up used for the creatures in the original trilogy, then you will be disappointed by the use of CGI for these characters in this film. I guess what I have to mention also since everybody has been bringing up in their reviews of this film 48 fps and the 3-D. To be honest I cannot find a huge problem with it. The entire picture looks nice, crisp, and clean, and is a satisfying deviation of the gritty look of the original trilogy. I do not think the 3-D was anything to scream about, except for several scenes, but otherwise it is not really needed since the camera just stays still throughout the most of it. I think the only complaint that I have is that whenever I tilted my head even when wearing the 3-D glasses, the 3-D effect would be gone. Correct me if I'm wrong but if that has anything to do with the 48 fps, then that might be a problem. Unless that is the case for any other 3-D film, then there is really nothing to complain about is there?
The story itself I think the second and third acts completely overshadow the first act. I felt that the first act was sort of tired and slow and I actually found myself closing my eyes and some parts. There was a lot of padding, scenes that went on for just too long, the main character sort of seemed uninteresting at first, the dwarves only got a laugh out of me here and there, and just a lot of filler. I was afraid that if the rest of the film was like this, I was in deep trouble. But actually for the most part the second and third act of the story gets really interesting and engaging. Things start to happen, we get enough time to learn more about the characters and enjoy them, we get a chance to get fully behind their motivation, the conflict between the goblins was fun to watch, the scene with Gollum was especially enjoyable to watch and was very well done in case of scene set-up, and the climax was thrilling. The story parallels with the development of the main character Bilbo, not interesting at first but gets really engaging at least throughout the majority of the film. Allowing the good stuff to greatly overshadow the mediocre stuff. There were many complaints that the film felt too long and the tone seemed childish compared to the gritty and adult feel of the original trilogy. I can see where those complaints are coming from and yes the film does start off pretty slow, but in my opinion it gets better and better as it goes on and it succeeds in not only saving itself but keeping my interest. And once that happened to film looked like it went by pretty fast to me, simply because I was finally able to enjoy the rest of it. I know it does have a shorter running time than the other Lord of the Rings films, but still watching this film made me realize that others were just nitpicking about the length. And to be fair the original Hobbit novel by J.R.R Tolkein was a children's novel so you should expect to see some childish elements in comparison to the more adult Lord of the Rings story. And to be honest, I kind of like the childish feel to it because I think it adds to the wonderful atmosphere to the film presents to us. That and it is a very interesting deviation to again the more adult Lord of the Rings, I like seeing this other side of the story and how you can do it in a charming and adventurous way without the conspiracies and darkness that was featured in the other films. I see the Lord of the Rings trilogy more as when things start to come full circle, characters' true colors are revealed, and when things are at risk which is why there are battles, bloodshed, and evil to confront, while The Hobbit seems more like a charming adventure or some sort of epic fairy tale and they pretty much got down the tone of that and it feels wonderful. I do think it is the weakest overall of the Lord of the Rings series, but it still is nowhere terrible. It sure has some problems, but it still manages to be entertaining, there are still a high amount of good things about oppose to the bad. I would not much recommend it for people who want to get to know the Lord of the Rings mythos because chances are you might not like it, but if you are familiar with it and really want it to see it then there is a possible chance you can enjoy it and get something out of it that leaves an impact. Unless it looks interesting and up your ally, who knows you might love it!
GRADE: P
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