Point-by-Point: The Hobbit

Most of the time, I put the grade I want to give the movie in the title of the post. On this one, I feel like I need to do a little more explaining. As a one-time watch-on-a-big-screen movie, especially as someone who has loved Tolkein's work and Peter Jackson's creation of the world of the Lord of the Rings, I loved this. However, in terms of rewatchability, especially on a home TV, I can promise it's not going to be high on my list. Thus: initial experience: 8/10; rewatch capacity: 4/10.

The Good:
I love, love, love that the texture of the Lord of the Rings movies has been preserved here. I really cannot imagine another director taking over from Peter Jackson in order to helm this kind of prequel. I'd been severely concerned after seeing the ad, which makes The Hobbit look really cheesy, slapstick and juvenile, that the tone would not be preserved... but although this story is handled less weightily, the overall world is the same. Even the "Concerning Hobbits" theme comes back!

Martin Freeman is a much better a hobbit-protagonist than Elijah Wood ever was. To be fair, Bilbo is a stronger character than Frodo, but Freeman has an affable magnetism that just works. Also, Richard Armitage, as Thorin, is just ... kingly. All in all: good casting choices.

This:


The Bad:
The book has no shortage of existing baddies... but here with Azoth, as in Fellowship with Lurtz and the Uruk-Hai, Peter Jackson seems oddly attached to creating miniboss-type foes. Why? I would say that it feels lazy... but it actually seems like it'd take MORE work to add characters (actors, costumes, makeup) to a story.

I was not a fan of the goblin city fight scene (the bridge sequence) at all. It was messy, confusing, facilitated entirely by happenstance timing, and far, far too long. This is a very small part of the book (there is no Khazad-dum-reminiscent epic battle), thus making it into a set-piece feels forced and honestly unnecessary, especially with the "15 birds in five fir trees" scene so close at hand! Similarly, the set-piece with the stoney Transformers -- I mean rock giants -- throwing boulders at each other was pointless and served only to remind the audience how little respect movies can have for things like physics and the limitations of the human (well, dwarvish) body.

Basically, I felt like checking my watch -- and rearranging my sitting bones to prevent total butt-numb-athon-itis -- during most of the action scenes because it became obvious quite quickly that once one started, you could safely zone out for a few minutes while Special Effects Happened. I won't go as far as comparing it to Transformers: Dark Side of the Moon, but ...

The Ugly:
Can we all just agree that splitting The Hobbit into three movies was a terrible idea? I would actually have no problem with having split it into two, comparable to the handling of the final Harry Potter book or Twilight: Breaking Dawn, but three is excessive.

"Floater" joke. Really? We needed that? Answer: no, no we did not. Ditto for the weirdly awkward and over-emphasized "Old Toby" gag.

Patience has never been one of my virtues, and I want to see Smaug! (yes, this is more me being ugly than the movie... but I'm going to run with it)

Points I Pondered:

• Why, after proving an almost slavish devotion to the setup created in Fellowship (even going so far as setting up why Frodo is waiting for Gandalf, etc) do they entirely change how Bilbo finds the ring? It's shown in Fellowship, referred back to a few times, and is, in that movie, true to the book. Here, it's very much changed. Why was this not picked up in the script-review process?
• Did anyone else keep hearing "doggie door" when Gandalf talked about Dol Guldur? 
• Someone makes a reference to Bilbo's toilet. Hobbits have indoor plumbing?