I can't say that I was super-excited for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. Part of it had to do with my work schedule at the time I saw it --- a 12:01AM opening day showing during a time where I worked long and early hours every day --- and part of it had to do with the fact that I grew up with The Lord of the Rings books before I ever got around to The Hobbit. While The Hobbit is charming and fun, it's not epic awesomeness. Still, An Unexpected Journey was being made by the same people who made the excellent LotR trilogy, so there should be little to worry about, aside from a hilarious dose of homosexual undertones, right? I was a little uneasy, though. The Hobbit is not a particularly long book, and yet An Unexpected Journey is only the first part of a Hobbit trilogy, while the significantly larger The Lord of the Rings books were barely squeezed into one (very long) film each. Doesn't it feel like Peter Jackson is milking this one a little too much?
In this prequel to The Lord of the Rings trilogy, we follow the young Bilbo Baggins (played by Martin Freeman here and Ian Holm in LotR) as he is enticed by a wizard, Gandalf the Grey (Ian McKellen), to embark on a dangerous adventure. The goal is to help a clan of dwarves, led by Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitage), reclaim the home of their ancestors. Why does it need reclaiming? Well, dwarves like to mine riches from the earth. Dragons apparently like riches, too. When the wealth of Thorin's granddaddy became well-known, a dragon decided to move in and fricassee anyone who interrupted his enjoyment of his ill-gotten riches.
Artist interpretation
Of course, they're not going to take on a dragon all alone. To go along with Bilbo, Gandalf, and Thorin are a lot of other dwarves. In case the preview didn't illustrate that point to you, here's an alternate movie poster:
Which one of them is the hobbit?
Bilbo isn't really built for adventuring; he's a hobbit, which means he is small and inexperienced with weapons and the dangers that fill Middle-Earth. He's not ready to face trolls, orcs, or goblins, much less a dragon that could frighten battle-happy dwarves --- and he may never be ready. This is the tale of Bilbo's struggles to find his place in the group and in the world outside of his home in Hobbiton. Of course, something else important happens in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey: Bilbo finds that ring that everyone made such a fuss about in those other three hobbit-ish films.
The acting in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is good, but this isn't really a movie built around individual performances. Martin Freeman plays a wonderful everyman, so casting him as the very suburban Bilbo was a good choice that paid off well. As the audience's POV character, he did a good job being confused and frightened for the audience, and I thought he conveyed his character's emotional journey rather well. Ian McKellen was good as Gandalf the Grey; he's obviously familiar with the part, but I liked that he was a little more temperamental and less wise in this film. Of the dwarves, Richard Armitage was by far the most impressive; it helps that he got to play a bad-ass and didn't have to wear goofy facial prosthetics, but Armitage was awfully good at brooding, too.
***Glower***
Ken Stott was the next most interesting dwarf, as the white-bearded right hand to Thorin. He didn't really do anything terribly cool, but he turned in one of the better acting performances in this series simply through his dialogue.
Stott was so good that I almost never laughed at the Cousin It under his nose
Oddly enough, those two cover most of the acting amongst the thirteen dwarf characters. You can argue that James Nesbitt had a few solid moments, or that Aidan Turner stuck out (if only because he looked like the heartthrob of the group), but they didn't really have much to do. The rest of the dwarves made little to no impression at all. A lot of actors from LotR came back for small parts, and they were all fine. Elijah Wood, Ian Holm, Hugo Weaving, Cate Blanchett, and Christopher Lee showed up, said a few lines, and were gone again. Andy Serkis reprised his role as Gollum and he was excellent. Serkis really does a great job every time he puts on a motion capture suit, and I hope he one day gets some recognition for the pioneering work he's doing (fun fact: Serkis also served as a second unit director on these movies). He doesn't steal the film, like he did in The Two Towers, but that's mainly due to screen time. Note to Peter Jackson: there's always more room in the script for Gollum.
He's like Jell-O in that way
The only other actor worth mentioning is former Doctor Who Sylvester McCoy, who got to play Radagast, the batty wizard that was apparently named by a twelve year-old in 1992. McCoy did a solid job with a goofy character, almost to the point where I forgot about the fake bird poop on his face.
Almost
The special effects were as stellar as you would expect from this series of films and these filmmakers. It kind of sucks that this movie revisits so many things that
we've seen before in Middle-Earth, because it gives a bit of a "been
there, seen that" feel to the film. Even with that in mind, the sets
--- particularly the ancestral dwarf home --- are all awesome. The CGI
was excellent, even in the large battle scenes that clearly didn't have
the actual actors fighting in them. I wasn't a big fan of the makeup on
the dwarves, though. Too many just looked silly, even if they are
faithful to how Tolkien wrote them. It's not a big deal, in the big scheme of things, but it irritated me that there were bad guys who looked dirty and creepy...
...and then there would be good guys who looked like complete cartoon characters.
This is actually one of the better-looking dwarves
I'm not entirely sure how I feel about Peter Jackson's work on The Hobbit. As far as his co-writing credit goes (the script was basically done by him and his partner, Fran Walsh), I was impressed that An Unexpected Journey felt like a complete story. Bilbo and Thorin had decently crafted character arcs, there was a natural ending point, and there was no cliffhanger ending. That's tough to do with source material that originally had only 310 pages --- and keep in mind that two more movies are on their way from that same material. I have no idea what the next two films will contain, but I'm alright with the contents of this one. If you're wondering where the hell Jackson and co. found the rest of the material to pad this story enough to get three movies out of it, that was touched on a bit in this interview Peter Jackson had on The Colbert Report:
As a director, I was a little less pleased with Peter Jackson. The tale was definitely told competently. The movie looked absolutely gorgeous, and the pacing was brisk; while my mind keeps telling me that this story was stretched out, it didn't feel that way when I was watching it. I wasn't a huge fan of the action sequences; without someone awesome to focus on (like Legolas in LotR), I was faced with a bunch of characters I didn't really care much about in situations that didn't seem all that dire. Admittedly, part of that impression is due to the fact that this movie looks so much like the Lord of the Rings movies that it suffers when you compare them by scale --- having fifteen good guys fighting a handful of orcs pales in comparison to the odds faced in LotR. But the problems are not just by comparison. Less than a third of this cast was fleshed out at all, so their survival meant little to me.
I only cared about the guy who isn't attending a rap-metal show at the Renaissance fair
That's on Jackson. There is no excuse to have all these characters left undeveloped, especially when there are three movies to fill. Another option would be to imply how unimportant some of them are, but each one has enough quirkiness to make the viewer wonder about them. This movie also suffered a bit from a lack of truly stellar bad guys. The goblin king was kind of gross, but he struck me as more of a bloated tumor than a credible threat.
He has a tumor the size of a grapefruit an obese cave dweller
The albino orc looked fairly cool, but he didn't get the chance to actually do anything cool. He just posed and growled. He was so underwhelming that the top Google image hits for him are either blurry or behind-the-scenes shots.
This was the best pic I could find of Azog, the Defiler. I mean "best" in every way possible.
Sure, Gollum was awesome (again), but he A) wasn't the primary threat B) only threatened Bilbo and C) obviously survived, along with Bilbo, because they are both in The Lord of the Rings.
My biggest complaint with The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, though, is with its tone. This story is not as epic as LotR, but it is being presented in the same way. As Stephen Colbert pointed out, Tolkien tried to go back and write an epic version of The Hobbit, but was later convinced that it was a bad idea. It seems odd that the filmmakers would make the same mistake. There's enough grandiosity in Middle-Earth to make this an epic tale, I suppose, but it just doesn't seem like the right fit.
It troubles Gandalf, too
I guess the easiest way to sum this movie up is to say that An Unexpected Journey is missing a lot of the charm that I expected to find, going into the movie. That doesn't mean that it is a bad movie, by any means. It's just not what I expected or, really, wanted in a film adaptation of The Hobbit. It is still a good movie and totally worth seeing. There is a lot to like here. In fact, there is just under three hours of movie to like here (and we have six more hours on the way!). It's just not as overwhelmingly, jaw-droppingly fantastic as the Lord of the Rings movies were. I think that is because this feels like a continuation of those films, instead of a new trilogy with its own identity. Hopefully, the sequels will course-correct that a little.
A quick aside on the format of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey: I have now seen this film in the standard 24 frames per second and in 3D 48 frames per second. The former was a much better experience for me. The 3D was fine when I saw it on opening night, but the action scenes looked terrible. However, my experience doesn't match up with any of the other complaints I've read online regarding the 48 fps presentation. Instead of looking like a video game, or looking "too real," or looking like the ClearMotion option on a Samsung TV, all the action looked like it was sped up. It felt like I was watching something out of the silent movie era, or at least an action scene from an early James Bond movie. My assumption is that someone played the 48 fps version of the movie at 24 fps (because that's how fast-motion scenes are conveyed in those other examples). If you have a better theory, I'd love to hear it.
There aren't a whole lot of movies where a child plays a bad-ass. Aside from Kick-Ass, I can't think of anything off the top of my head. I think it's safe to say that the child-as-a-killer motif in American movies is relatively novel, and that alone makes Hanna an intriguing movie. Combine the bad-ass child idea with a fairly artsy director (Joe Wright, best known for Atonement and Pride and Prejudice), and you just know that you're in for something different with this film. A bad-ass chick flick, perhaps? Perhaps...
Hanna (Saoirse Ronan) lives alone with her father, Erik (Eric Bana), in a cabin in the woods, located just outside of the Arctic Circle. To say that they don't get out much is a bit of an understatement. Erik has taught Hanna a variety of survival skills, including hunting, trapping, tanning animal hides, and basically everything you would need to live like a 17th century fur trapper.
Hanna is just like him, but with a little less 'stache.
All of that makes sense for a child growing up outside of civilization. Erik has also taught Hanna a variety of fighting techniques, including a few martial arts, gunplay, and knife fighting. He even tests her at random; whenever she feels safe (gutting a deer, sleeping in bed, or other typical child activities), he will attack her with potentially lethal force --- and she can get the better of him, sometimes. That is quite a bit less common for children of any background. You see, Hanna and Erik don't live in the forest for kicks, there are people "out there" who want to capture or kill them both, and will never leave them be. Erik knows the dangers awaiting Hanna, but knows that she will have to deal with it some day; all children need to grow up eventually. To that end, Erik has a tracking beacon of some sort that, when turned on, will set off alarms at the CIA, and bring their enemies to them; he gives it to Hanna, to turn on whenever she feels ready. And she does.
The rest of the movie has Erik and Hanna splitting up and being hunted across the world. Hanna is initially captured (after killing a few CIA agents) and placed in a ridiculous spy movie underground prison (which she kills her way out of), from where she travels, weaponless and penniless, from Morocco to Germany. Along the way, she encounters a lot of firsts. She witnesses electricity for the first time, hears her first music, sees her first dancing, meets her first family, makes her first friend, and has a first kiss (whose ass she totally kicks). Oh, and she beats the hell out of some bad guys that were sent to find her. There is a lot more to life that what she grew up with, but she will never be able to enjoy it, as long as she's being hunted.
Hanna is definitely an action movie, but what makes it unique is the fact that it is aware of the "real world," the "action movie world," and a world of fairy tales. While I would hesitate to call Hanna a full-on chick flick, this is definitely one of the more complex action movies you will see, and one that takes pleasure in a lot of unexpectedly cute moments.
But it is an action movie, and a good one. Director Joe Wright does a great job shooting the action sequences, especially for a first-time action director. Instead of a lot of close-up shots that are edited together to the point of disorientation, Wright uses a lot of long shots, showing that the actors are the ones performing the action on-screen, which is especially important in convincing the audience that Hanna is actually formidable. There are a lot of fight scenes that purposely aren't edited, so action buffs are treated to extended fight sequences that were filmed in continuous takes. The most notable of these has Eric Bana going all "Hulk smash" on a group of CIA agents in a subway station, and it's pretty sweet.
"Hulk want push on swing!"
The acting is pretty good here, too, although the veteran cast played it pretty safe. Saoirse Ronan was great as Hanna, balancing some very impressive action chops with believable innocence and confusion when she is out in the real world. Her performance is the key of the film, and she does not disappoint, playing with a maturity beyond her 16 years. Eric Bana was good as her protective/scary father, but he basically just played a tough guy that doesn't let his emotions out. Not exactly the toughest role, but he pulls it off easily enough. Cate Blanchett was okay as the film's villainous CIA operative, but I felt that she didn't seem ruthless enough, despite having several mean moments in the film. Her southern accent bothered me, too, I'm not sure why. There were a few other recognizable supporting cast members. Tom Hollander was great as the evil German sent to track down Hanna; he was creepy and mean, but he also whistled and wore a yellow track suit, so it was an odd blend of absurd humor and creepiness. Olivia Williams and Jason Flemyng have small, broadly drawn character roles, but I thought Jessica Barden was pretty good as an annoying teenage girl that befriends Hanna. I know, a teenage girl that hates her parents --- what a unique character! Still, I thought she was appropriately snotty.
At the very least, Hanna is an entertaining action movie. It's pretty awesome to see a slightly built teenage girl look like she is legitimately beating the crap out of tough-looking guys, even if some of them are wearing suspenders with their skinny jeans. The story is pretty good, at least thematically. There is a twist that isn't terribly surprising and probably should have been left out entirely, but it's played down, so I won't complain too much about it. There is also a fairy tale theme throughout the film, and it may deepen your appreciation for the movie. It didn't work for me, but you might like it. Basically, this movie plays out like a Grimm fairy tale; Blanchett plays the evil queen/witch and Hanna is the innocent and good princess. For most of the movie, this theme is pretty subtle, but when Blanchett walks out of a large fiberglass Big Bad Wolf head, the subtlety has been gone for about ten minutes. I like it when directors and screenwriters try to add layers to movies, and I appreciate the effort here, but it just didn't click for me.
Silencers. Just like in the fairy tales.
But don't let that stop you from seeing Hanna. This is the type of action movie that only comes around every few years, and it's definitely worth seeing, if only to remind you how different action movies can be. It has some humor, a good amount of emotion, some awesome fighting, and fairy tale stuff thrown in for good measure. Plus, the soundtrack provided by the Chemical Brothers was pretty cool, too. The closest film I can compare it to, in terms of how it made me feel, is The Professional. And that's not a bad thing at all.
You might not remember this, but when Russell Crowe originally signed on to this project, it was to play the Sheriff of Nottingham. As a hero. Whatever. Later, he was going to play both the Sheriff and Robin Hood; I don't know if he was going to do an Eddie Murphy makeup job to pull it off, or if it was a plot twist that had one character assuming the role of the other, or if he was going to be costumed like Tommy Lee Jones in Batman Forever or what. Eventually, the project mutated further, which brought it back to the more recognizable form we see in this film.
I mention the history behind the project because it helps make sense of some of the choices this movie makes. A lot of the iconic scenes from past Robin Hoods are absent here and a few characters that have been historically important roles are pushed aside here. That doesn't make this a bad movie, mind you. It's just different. If you think of this as "Robin Hood Begins," then you'll be able to approach the movie with a fresh mind-set and appreciate it for what it is: a Ridley Scott-directed, Russell Crowe-starring action movie. And there's nothing wrong with that.
Robin Longstride (Russell Crowe) is coming back from the Crusades in the army of King Richard the Lionheart (Danny Huston) of England, when the army pauses on their journey home to pillage a French castle. Bad idea; the Lionheart dies. Robin and his buddies decide to rush to the coast while they can, because they know the rush to England will make boat rides pretty scarce. They weren't the only ones with this idea; Robin Locksley of Nottingham was leading a party of knights to the king's ship to escort his royal crown back to England and give it to the royal family. Again, bad idea; the knights are ambushed by French soldiers, led by Godfrey (Mark Strong), the right-hand man of Prince John. Godfrey is working as a double agent, pretending to be loyal to England, but is really working for France's King Phillip in exchange for power and riches. Robin and his men ambush the ambushers, killing most but Godfrey escapes with a nasty Joker-esque scar from Robin's arrow. Robin promises the dying Locksley to return his family sword to Nottingham and the crown to the royal family. Oddly enough, he does both.
That synopsis doesn't even get into the meat of the story, does it? This is a pretty complicated plot for a character that is supposed to rob from the rich and give to the poor. I could go on, but it gets a little silly. I suppose that should be rephrased as, "I can go on, and it gets a little silly out of context:"
Robin assumes the identity of Robin Locksley, then abandons it, only to assume it once more upon the request of Locksley's father (Max von Sydow).
The sheriff of Nottingham is bullied by Godfrey's men and contributes absolutely nothing to the plot or character development of the movie.
Robin is only referred to as "Robin Hood" twice in the entire movie.
Are those the Lost Boys from Peter Pan in Sherwood Forest?
Robin fights for King John.
Robin is married to Marion before they even kiss.
There is an implied orgy.
He steals from the rich church and gives to the poor plants crops in the night.
Surprisingly, this all works pretty well. Godfrey and his French soldiers have been attacking the towns and property of the British nobles, in the name of King John. Logically, the nobles prepare to team up and attack King John; this is Godfrey's plan to weaken England's army so France can invade. Robin steps in and essentially suggests the Magna Carta by declaring that every man should have liberty by law. This is enough to get England to band together and they attack France's invading forces in a suitably epic battle. To put it simply, a lot happens in this movie.
Ridley Scott can direct an action movie in his sleep, which might be why parts of this film are a tad reminiscent of the battle scenes from his previous movies. Still, Scott and screenwriter Brian Helgeland (who is completely hit and miss --- The Postman AND LA Confidential? Really?!? A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master AND Man on Fire?!?) clearly wanted this to be a unique middle ages experience. This is definitely the most authentic-looking Robin Hood movie to date, with what appears to be genuine military strategy from those times. The weapons look good and they are used correctly; this is important if you're one of those people who doesn't think action heroes should be able to carry anti-aircraft guns and run at the same time. The clothing also is very authentic. The details throughout the film add to the appeal because they aren't necessarily obvious, but every so often I found myself thinking "Oh, look, Robin's bow fingers look different than the rest of his hand," or something like that. Not terribly important stuff always, but nice to see.
Russell Crowe generally acts in movies where he is the only developed character, and that is basically true here. This isn't an Oscar-worthy role for him, but he does everything you want Crowe to do in an action movie: he is tough, honorable, a little sensitive, and looks a little uncomfortable making jokes. Oh, and he's a bad-ass. Can't forget that. The next most developed character is Marion, played by Cate Blanchett; Blanchett, like Crowe, turns in a pretty standard performance here. She's still a go-to actress to play smart characters and she plays the role appropriately. Mark Strong is dastardly as Godfrey, but he doesn't do much except be eeee-veeeel. There is no denying that he does bad well. There is also no denying that he looks like an evil Andy Garcia. The rest of the characters are much less developed. I actually liked Kevin Durand as Little John; he provides a lot of the smiles in the movie and he looks huge here, as opposed to most Little Johns, who have tended toward "big boned" as well as strong. Scott Grimes (Will Scarlet), Alan Doyle (Allan A'Dayle), and Mark Addy (Friar Tuck) are okay as the rest of Robin's Merry Men, but they are in the background for most of the movie. Similarly, William Hurt and Danny Huston are left criminally underused in this story. Matthew Macfayden played the Sheriff of Nottingham, but his three scenes just leave you scratching your head, because he is ineffectual, at best. To be fair to Macfayden, though, the character has nothing to do in this film. On the other hand, Oscar Isaac is suitably weasely as King John, playing rude, ruthless, and wussy simultaneously. Eileen Atkins (as King John's mom) and Lea Seydoux (King John's wife) are fittingly regal and actually succeed with the little material they are given. Overall, I would say the acting is surprisingly good for the number of characters in the movie, but most of the performances are superficial.
That said, there were some things in this movie that bugged me. First of all, I have a problem with movie titles that imply that their story is the definitive telling of a particular tale (see Ed Gein or Pearl Harbor for examples). By calling this movie "Robin Hood," viewers have every reasonable expectation to see the iconic scenes from the legend and previous film adaptations, like the scene where Robin and Little John meet over a river (which is kind-of-not-really replaced with a game of medieval three card monte). I have no problem with that scene (or any others) being omitted here; I just think that, since this is clearly a re-imagining of the story, the title should have been changed to Robin Hood Begins, The Untold Truth of Robin Hood, or even Robin Longstride or Robin of the Hood. Any of these would have clearly pointed out that this story could differ from the more familiar ones.
Another problem I have is the historical inaccuracies. Most Robin Hood stories end when King Richard returns to England to reclaim his throne; here he dies before Robin becomes a Hood. Robin (and his father before him) propose a charter of rights (clearly alluding to the Magna Carta, which King John will eventually sign), but the dates of the movie set this up over a decade early. King John never went into battle. Oh, and one more minor point... the French never invaded England. HA! It's like making a Revolutionary War movie and having America fight the Spanish, or a Civil War film that uses the secession of states as the reason why Canada isn't part of this country. Oh, our culture is ignorant. Of course, little things like the perversion of history are not going to bother anyone.
Inaccuracies aside, I enjoyed this movie. It's got a lot of plot for a pretty simple story, but it still makes sense. The action is good and the acting is pretty solid throughout. I'm a little surprised that Robin doesn't do his normal Socialist thing of redistributing wealth from the rich to the poor. His whole take on individual freedoms seems an awful lot like Libertarianism to me, which is an interesting direction to take such an iconic character. I wish there was more humor in the movie, but the tone is at least consistent throughout. If the focus had been on character development instead of a plot that incorporated so many known-but-underused characters here, I think the film would have been much more enjoyable. Really, do we need to have Friar Tuck, Allan A'Dayle, William Marshall, or even the Sheriff of Nottingham in this story? No. With so many changes from the traditional tale, this movie could have easily gotten away with omitting a lot of the supporting cast. Of course, some of these criticisms only occurred to me after thinking about the movie for a bit. I have no problem saying that (aside from the history lesson) I had no problems when the movie was playing.
