Beautiful, but strangely disengaging

Rating: 5/10 (14 December 2012)

Director Peter Jackson, along with a tremendous amount of assistance from cinematographer Andrew Lesnie ("The Lord Of the Rings" trilogy) has again created a wonderful visual motion picture experience that is both amazingly expansive, yet lush and personable.
With all of that written, however, his adaptation of the J. R. R. Tolkien tome (screenplay by Jackson, Guillermo del Toro, Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens), like his 2005 version of the classic "King Kong," has unending style, yet little substance to sustain its almost excruciating 170-minute running time.
"The Hobbit," as a book may hold cult status for many literati, but it was more of a juvenile work and has always played the second cousin to the darker, more mature LOTR. And, so far as a film franchise, the very same applies.
Despite the various story lines running to and fro in that three-movie series, there was no question regarding the success Jackson achieved in keeping the plots in cohesive and lucid control.
In this newest effort, "An Unexpected Journey," we do not see that cohesion and, oftentimes, the action appears wildly unweilding and confusing. The scenes blend and blur at times, and the pacing is dreadfully off. Some sequences go on indefinitely, while others begin and end in a flash.
And some just go nowhere. For example, there is one which features what I would assume are terrifying giant spiders that attack the bumbling wizard Radagast (Sylvester McCoy, "Eldorado"), but then disappear never to return. I know they're setting up some things for the eventual sequels, but some of these omissions are a bit unnerving.
Like "King Kong," which took almost an hour to take off, and was then completely bogged down again by the long-running dinosaur and giant insect sequences, this picture shows the same pattern of chases, fights and resting over and over and over again. There is definitely action here, but those scenes are so few and far between, we become overcome at times with complete tedium overload.
Populating the film with 15 protagonists (although only two are of real interest, the title creature, Bilbo Baggins, and Gandalf the Wizard) also lends for only a small amount of overall character development opportunities. Consequently, little, if any, empathy is gained from the cast and the movie - while so beautiful to watch - becomes strangely difficult to become emotionally involved with.
The story follows Baggins (Martin Feeman, a voice in "Pirates: Band Of Misfits"), who is swept into a quest to reclaim the lost Dwarf Kingdom of Erebor, which was conquered by the dragon Smaug. Approached by wizard Gandalf the Grey (Ian McKellen, "Gods and Monsters," LOTR), Baggins finds himself joining a company of 13 dwarfs, led by warrior Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitage, "Captain America: The First Avenger").
At first, the gentle and unassuming hobbit wants nothing to do with this adventure, or the crowd of obnoxious dwarfs who invade his home and devour almost all of his year's supply of food, but for the movie's sake, he soon signs on and finds himself battling Middle Earth creatures, large, vicious wolf-like monsters, evil giants and the goblin Gollum (Andy Serkis "King Kong"), even attaining that entity's "precious" gold ring, which of course, was instrumental in Jackson's last three-film franchise.
And that is another of "The Hobbit's" problems as Baggins and Co. encounter not only Gollum, but elves Elrond and Galadriel (Hugo Weaving and Cate Blanchett), the sorcerer Saruman (Christopher Lee), and other characters from LOTR. Even Frodo (Eligah Wood) makes an early appearance. It's almost as if Jackson were trying to make LOTR IV instead of "The Hobbit I."
As uninvolved as I was emotionally, however, the look of "The Hobbit" remains a wonder of seamless filmmaking technology. Jackson's vision of Tolkien's Middle Earth, the crags of Lonely Mountain and the foreboding bowels of the Goblin Tunnels are breathtaking and magnificent achievements. Academy Awards galore should be heaped upon him for these creations.
However, Gandalf says early in the proceedings, "All stories need a little embellishment," we assume to make them more palatable and exciting. It's too bad Jackson did not follow his own advice here.