Baggy Bag End

Rating: 6/10 (16 December 2012)

I admire Peter Jackson, coming from the world of low-budget horror, his desire to take on the epic Lord Of The Rings, and ability to deliver what he did, is hugely impressive. His love for the source material was very clear, and despite anything about that trilogy with which I may have my reservations, it was a near masterpiece. Now here we are, about a decade on, with Martin Freeman taking on the role of Bilbo Baggins, in what we could consider a prequel, though they were never written that way; truth be told, in the long-run it won't matter which way round the movies were made, this is a separate story and, importantly, a different tone.
There are many good things about this film, much to be admired, but Jackson's adoration for the source is still well on show, and unfortunately this means he wants to cram a lot of superfluous material in to what should have been a straightforward adaption of a children's book. Whether you be a die hard fan who remains excited for Jackson's inclusion of all sorts of other Tolkein material that isn't strictly 'The Hobbit', or a casual viewer who does not know the first thing about Tolkein's tale, one thing is unarguable, this film is far too long. With an extremely baggy introduction at bag end, and an awful lot of exposition, it is a good forty minutes or so before we hit any sort of movement in the narrative; this would not have mattered so much if a lot of the introductory material didn't end up feeling quite so inconsequential. Then there is the struggle to balance the lightness of 'The Hobbit' with the tone set by 'Lord of the Rings'; on one hand the film displays a sort of whimsy, on another it wants to be dark and epic, the prior feeling at times strangely awkward when punctuating the latter. For this critic at least, it means you never quite feel completely comfortable and 'in gear' with the movie; I think it speaks volumes that the film is at its obvious best when it is most like the previous trilogy, the Riddles in the Dark scene with Gollum clearly standing out as a highlight.
Then we have the choice to shoot at double the normal film speed; with many theatres still catching up with this technology, the likelihood is this won't bother most who see it projected at normal speed, but why bother shooting this way? It is commonly said to make things feel too real, and remove the magic of cinema from the piece, something I would have expected Jackson to recognise quite early on and avoid. There is no reason to see this any way other than 2D at normal speed.
Do not get me wrong, 'An Unexpected Journey' is an enjoyable film for many reasons, not least of which are the performances of Martin Freeman, Andy Serkis and Sir Ian McKellen, who can make even the most dull moment seem like more, and the score is typically gorgeous. I wait to see what the next two instalments do, but it is fair to say that based on the evidence of this movie alone, perhaps a bit more discipline and the creation of one 210 minute film may have been more wise; this is a movie that should have been incredible, but is overly bloated and feels, at times, burdened by a little too much indulgence, and so ends up being just very good.