My last trip to Middle Earth was more than eight years ago, late spring 2004.It was similar to other trips, but my two friends and I who made the jaunt saw a few new sites this go-round, as we splurged for the director’s extended cut package.
A 12-plus-hour roundtrip on the red-eye – 9 p.m. to 9 a.m. –
nonstop. We made it safely, besides getting flour in our eyes, noses and mouths
and on the apartment floor. For some reason we decided this was the perfect
night to embrace “antiquing.” Sophomoric? Yes. Idiotic? Yes.
But a fun trip nonetheless. I couldn’t wait to go back, and
Saturday I did. It was everything I remembered.
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey immediately reminds fans
of how amazing the scenery, color and special effects were in the Lord of The
Rings trilogy. I have lodged complaints about CGI on podcasts before, but this
movie is proof it can be done right and done well. The dwarven cave-metropolis
of Elebor is Avatar-ish, and there’s just something about wide scenes of bright
green rolling hills with mountains and a bright blue sky in the background that
feels right. Even if these scenes features orc-mounted giant wolf-cats chasing
super rabbits towing a mushroom-addicted wizard with bird shit in his hair, it
feels good.
The Shire, which we have visited several times, is another
example of how easy on the eyes the movie is. However, it is also here where
some of the weakest moments of the movie occur, and for too long. There are
some fun moments, like when Elijah Wood drags his ass off the couch and takes a
break from smoking dope with a man in a dog suit long enough to wink at the
camera. This is before we go back 60 years before LOTR, and I wish the movie
did not spend as much time in “present” day. It’s not like we’re here forever,
but come on, I’ve been gone awhile, let’s do what we came here to do.
Finally we go back to the past, where Bilbo is being recruited
by conquered dwarves and Gandalf for his skills with a set of sticky fingers.
After tolerating a couple of corny dwarf songs, and a lot of forgettable
pleading with a hobbit who really isn’t up for the job, the adventure begins,
and Bilbo joins the roving dwarves out to reclaim their home.
I don’t want to give a bunch of details about everything
that happened along the way. This movie was nearly three hours long, so I’m
just going to throw out a couple of random thoughts here to get to some of my
favorite parts of the movie. So I’m going to rattle off a random sequence of
things that I want to point out, but not spend a lot of time on.
Three large horse-stealing-and-eating trolls. Rivendell.
Agent Smith. Gandalf smoking what is clearly mind-altering tobacco. Weapons.
Bilbo gets a sword that someone calls an envelope opener. Someone makes a joke
about how golf was invented. (If I heard that right. I hope I didn’t.)
Amidst all this, we get an incredible flashback sequence. In
it we see a stand-off between Thorin, the dwarf prince, leader of the
aforementioned exiled dwarves, and the pale orc. The flashback provides some
much-needed action, and establishes one of the many overwhelming obstacles our
heroes have to overcome. Johnsy was using the terlet at this moment, and missed
an important reference. More on this later.
The pale orc and his pack aren’t the only non-humans the
fellas encounter on their way to reclaim Elebor. A new group of dwarves we run
into are led by a fat-saggy-chinned orc, and not long after looking at his
gross chin (CGI I did not need to see), we get what we all came for.
THE. PETER. JACKSON. CLIMAX.
As Colin and I discussed in #WorstFriends 28, when Peter
Jackson decides it’s go time, don’t blink. I’m not going to spoil what happens
(we already did on the podcast), but think about past PJCs. These are not
intense 15-30-minute sequences. Peter Jackson’s climaxes go all night long (If
the sexual undertones amuse you, laugh. If not, groan.)
With roughly an hour remaining, as my friend Colin would
say, “It’s butt-puckerin’ time.” The sequence is similar to the escape sequence
at the end of The Fellowship of the Ring and the charge out of the castle
during the battle of Helms Deep. There’s desperation, a face-off, balls and
birds – an overall great ending to a very good movie.
Those last three words sum up my overall feelings about The
Hobbit. It’s not great. It’s not better than The Two Towers or Return of the
King, and although I could understand someone saying they liked it more than
The Fellowship of the Ring, I’m not ready to go there. Close, but it just comes
up a little short.
It was good enough to remind me how much I loved the original
trilogy, though. And while I have probably grown more fanatical over other
movies, TV shows and Harry Potter since LOTR wrapped up, I now find myself
instantly looking forward to the new installment and the next PJC.
One more thing. I had to take a piss break about an hour and
a half into the movie. I don’t believe I missed anything too critical, so this
would be a good time for those of you without a bladder of steel to do the
same.
Tim Barnum is one of the hosts of the #WorstFriends podcast, a writer and journalist.
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