The Hobbit

2 ½ out of 4

Let’s take a ride with Peter Jackson once again into the world of Tolkien and Lord of the Rings, this time into the original novel The Hobbit. Broken into 3 movies at close to 3 hours a piece Jackson has plenty of time to expand minuscule details and keep everything from the book. Just keep in perspective, all totaled Jackson’s Hobbit will be longer than the audio book. All that aside, Jackson does a good job of connecting The Hobbit to his other Lord of the Rings films since they came first. There is an interesting cameo for Frodo (Elijah Wood), and the connection to Bilbo’s birthday in Fellowship of the Ring is purely delightful. I will also say that Jackson sure knows how to do a voice over prologue; he did it to introduce the history of the ring in the Fellowship of the Ring and does it again to introduce the history of the dwarfs. There were a couple of scenes that Jackson drags on for no apparent reason other than to keep his tradition of a 3 hour movie. Many of these scenes took place with scenery porn. Granted the scenery chosen is magnificent but there is just too much of it, it honestly took more than half an hour of the film put together. Jackson needs to let go of the 3 hour mold and accept that good movies can be an hour and a half or even two hours and doesn’t have to be three hours every time. Martin Freedman does a wonderful job as a young Bilbo Baggins and Ian McKellen plays Gandalf in masterful mystical way. But the character that stole the movie was Gollum/Smeagol played by the brilliant Andy Serkis. The dual personality of the tormented mind of Gollum and Smeagol is on full display in the interaction between Bilbo and Gollum. This interaction goes far beyond the small role it had in the book and becomes one of the largest and most anticipated parts of the movie. The scene may be slightly drawn out but Serkis’ performance simply makes it great. The Hobbit definitely doesn’t deserve the 11 Oscar nominations given to Return of the King but is still a fun adventure.