ViewGuide

Created Dec 23, 2012 12:35PM PST • Edited Dec 15, 2013 02:55PM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Very Good 3.5

   Part 1 of the The Hobbit trilogy is an oft charming visual feast. Wait. Part 1? Trilogy?

   The Hobbit ain’t no trilogy! It is now, at the movies.

   Peter Jackson – Lord High Creator of the Lord of the Rings trilogy – is betting we’ll pay three times to see him realize Tolkien’s unitary short novel on the big big screen. He’s probably right, right and right.

   It’s not just his realization. It’s also Andy Serkis’s, the Second Unit Director, who is on screen maybe ten percent of the time as the human inside Gollum but whose Second Unit created – what? – half the movie.

   Thus 60% of An Unexpected Journey is his, an unexpected realization.

   As expected, wizards and elves and dwarves and hobbits make for an enjoyable set of humanistic factions.

   Happy to spend the time with them. Even if it’s just the first step of an unexpected three part journey.

4. Acting

   Good 3.0

   Ian McKellen makes a great wizard – the great Gandalf – stentorian voice, wizened visage, pointed hat.

   Martin Freeman’s Bilbo Baggins? Merely OK as the titular hobbit, not nearly as engaging as Elijah Wood, who plays his nephew Frodo.

   Richard Armitage’s King Elf compares dimly to Viggo Mortensen’s King Human from Lord of the Rings.

   The other elves are mostly interchangeable – boorish munchkins really.

   Hugo Weaving’s royal elf is a distinctive turn for this distinctive actor. Less so Cate Blanchett, the other royal elf.

   As to the other wizards, Christopher Lee’s Saruman is suitably forbidding, while Sylvester McCoy’s nutty wizard isn’t nearly as charming as he should be.

   Finally, Andy Serkis’s Gollum remains an all time great movie character. My precious.

5. Male Stars Good 3.0

6. Female Stars Good 3.0

   None, but set to not drag down Male Stars

7. Female Costars OK 2.5

8. Male Costars Good 3.0

10. Film

    Very Good 3.5

    Lots of variability in the Film scores: Great Direction, OK Play, Barely OK Music and – of course – Perfect Visuals. It all weights out to a Very Good Film.

11. Direction Great 4.0

12. Play OK 2.5

    A story of down-home little people and grand wizards, and an extremely desirable ring. Precious, even.

    That said, there’s not enough story to fill nearly three hours of running time. It’s that Part 1 thing.

13. Music Barely OK 2.0

14. Visuals Perfect 5.0

    The heavily stylized sets, costumes, beards and effects are obvious creations of invention, but are done with such good spirit and craft that they are a continual delight to behold.

    As to which format to view it in, I ended up seeing it in 2D, after the available 3D and 3D HFR showings proved logistically inconvenient. Pity, as I think seeing it in 3D would have been worthwhile.

15. Content

16. Edge

    Tame 1.5

    Bloodless violence and nary any sex make The Hobbit tame indeed.

    1.2 Sex x 1.6 Violence x 1.7 Saltiness = a low and ascending set of edginess factors. Rare.

17. Sex Innocent 1.2

18. Violence Fierce 1.6

19. Rudeness Salty 1.7

21. Reality

    Fantasy 4.1

    Profoundly digital in its creation, The Hobbit is resolutely pre-digital in its fantasy world. Indeed, it whisks early 21st century man completely away from our iPhone world, in part on the wings of fantasy, in part by voyeuristic immersion into an extensively detailed pre-industrial world – quill on paper, horse on trail, sword on armor. Not a phone or keyboard or car to be found, it’s the ultimate Renaissance Faire, notwithstanding a lack of busty maidens.

22. Circumstantial Fantasy 4.4

23. Biological Fantasy 4.3

24. Physical Supernatural 3.5