THE HOBBIT: THE DESOLATION OF SMAUG

At the end of the day, I'm not sure Peter Jackson understands how to adapt The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien's brisk children's book to which Lord of the Rings was a sequel. Jackson seems to feel that because both books are from the same author and are set in the same universe that they can simply be snapped together with some help from the Rings appendices. But the fact remains that The Hobbit is a fundamentally different work meant for a completely different audience and it's just not an epic, no matter how much Jackson wants it to be. So here we have the second in a trilogy of films based on a 120 page book. The first film visibly strained under the weight of serving both as an adaptation and a prequel to an existing, but dispirit franchise. The second film, The Desolation of Smaug, kinda gives up on the book and settles for just being the best Rings prequel it can be, which is for the best, even if as it continues to feel like the film is being upstaged by franchise obligations.

The film picks up with Hobbit pseudo-protagonist Bilbo (Martin Freeman), exiled dwarf king Thorin (Richard Armitage) and his extended entourage as they race to reclaim their homeland from a usurping dragon.  The echoes from the Rings films start to pile up, particularly with Thorin, whom the film carefully paints as our new Aragorn, introduced here at the same inn where we first meet Aragorn in the previous film. The scene stresses that he too is a roguish heir to a lost kingdom who only needs the courage to take charge of his larger destiny. But whereas Aragorn was noble because he never wanted power, it feels like Thorin and co are, at least in part, in it for the money. Indeed there's an assertion that Thorin has a relationship to the Arkenstone (a McGuffin needed for part 3) that Jackson hopes we'll find analogous to and as compelling as the one between Frodo and The Ring. Further mining the Rings films is material from the books appendices designed to give the main quest more urgency by suggesting that the dwarves must defeat Smaug quickly because Sauron is gaining power and might try and recruit him.

The resulting film feels more like a chase movie with ticking clocks and the kind of easily surmountable impossible obstacles we expect in a proper adventure: dark forests, ancient riddles, Ray Harryhousen spiders, politically ambivalent elves, orcs, goblins, shifty rogues and they even manage to squeeze in the titular dragon. On a superficial level, the action is all well directed, and as long as he sticks to action, Jackson has a great skill in extrapolation. He looks at small scenes in the book, like the one where Bilbo helps the dwarves escape from some elves by hiding them in barrels being sent down river and asks with boyish abandon: "what if there was a lock blocking their way and the elves caught them rasing the gate but then orcs attack everyone and it turns into a great three-way chase down river and one guy gets catapulted into the air, lands and rolls over a bunch or orcs in his barrel," and so on and so forth.

These extended scenes are fun without ever feeling as vital as they should, but as soon as he shifts to narrative, the film starts to dull. For instance, that barrel scene is a lot of fun, particularly with the addition of Rings favorite Legolas (Orlando Bloom) and his sidekick Girl Legolas (Evangeline Lilly) opening up a can of whoop-ass on wave after wave of faceless goons, but when they stick around to have a pointless love triangle with one of the dwarves that's all forbidden and junk, it starts to feel just a tad calculated.

If you're wondering where all these additions leave Bilbo and Smaug, the two title characters of the film, the answer is nowhere, the two seem strangely diminished here. Bilbo exists primarily to get the dwarves out of trouble while Gandalf (Ian McKellen) is off doing stuff (with thankfully little assistance from Radagast). As much fun as it is to watch Martin Freeman do stuff, this is sort of preferable to his treatment in the last film, which labored endlessly over his potential importance. That said, it's hardly ideal for him to just blend in with the group of 13, mostly undeveloped, dwarves.

Then there's the eventual encounter with Smaug. All the build up with Sauron kind of turns Smaug into a second-teir villain. Important not for his own villainy so much as his potential usefulness as a future henchman of the real bad guy who belongs to a different trilogy. Furthermore, while Smaug is played with gleeful menace by Benedict Cumberbatch and is given a magnificent entrance, he comes in at a point where the film desperately needs to start thinking about its cliffhanger but instead reaches greedily for just one more action sequence that every audience member knows wont resolve anything, alter the narrative or our perceptions of the characters. It's just another example of what this series needs less of: padding.

It's sad that Jackson feels so adrift. His Lord of the Rings trilogy should have been the beginning of a bold, new chapter of his career as a more manic successor to David Lean, but instead of finding big stories to tell, he seems to think he can take smaller stories and stretch them to epic lengths, first came his gargantuan King Kong remake, now this. He want's length, but he doesn't understand that length requires density. If he wants to continue in this direction, there are other great sci-fi/fantasy books to adapt and fantastic historical epics he could be doing (Napoleon, Musashi Miyamoto), or he could going back to his horror roots or do something completely new. Instead he's stuck in a rut of faux-epics, trying to stuff his past triumphs into ill-fitting forms.

Grade: B-

THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY

The best thing I can say about Peter Jackson's The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, part one of a promised 3-part adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings prelude novel The Hobbit, is that it has much of the technical brilliance of it's predecessors. The sweeping vista's of New Zealand are as jaw-dropping as we remember, Howard Shore's score is one of his best in years, and the performances are mostly excellent. However it's lacking in one critical respect—editing.

The titular hobbit, Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman), is a completely average hobbit, he likes tea, food and sitting around. One day he meets a wizard named Gandalf (Ian McKellen) who insists on inviting 13 dwarves, lead by Thorin (Richard Armitage), to Bilbo's house. After an endless dinner party Gandalf asks Bilbo to come along with them to a far away land to kill the dragon that took the dwarves homeland.

Bilbo is not the type to go on adventures, but he goes anyway. Apart from some allusion to recklessness in his family tree, his decision to go is never satisfactorily explained. If I recall, the book glossed over this issue with its brisk pace. The film on the other hand, never stops wondering, in a vain attempt to squeeze some complexity (not to mention extra running time) out of this children's story.

A typical exchange goes something like this:
Bilbo: Why am I here Gandalf?
Thorin: Why is he here Gandalf?
Gandalf winks knowingly
Bilbo and Thorin: That doesn't tell us anything!!!

In another attempt to add complexity, Jackson adds some material from the appendices of Lord of the Rings. Some of this material explains where Gandalf goes on his frequent disappearances. Too much features Sylvester McCoy as an insufferable, hippy-dippy, tree hugging wizard named Radagast who is one of the least important characters in Tolkien's mythos. Yet Jackson has beefed up his part so that instead of Gandalf, it's Radagast and his sled of super fast rabbits who stumble onto signs that Rings villain Sauron may be about to return. If you're wondering what any of that has to do with Bilbo, the dwarves and their quest to kill the dragon, the answer is nothing. Nothing at all. But we get so much of it that an audience member could almost be forgiven for forgetting about the main plot.

If that weren't irritating enough, the film goes to great length to extend material that should have been told more efficiently. Compare the film's seemingly endless prologue to the one in Fellowship of The Ring which took less time to set up a lot more. I imagine some hardcore fans will enjoy all the book centric details Jackson has squeezed in here, but the thing that made Jackson's earlier film's work was his ability to balance the nuance of Tolkien's prose while still making efficient, accessible films. Those older films were long, but even Jackson's truly epic extended cuts justified their running times with a sense of momentum and rich, compelling characters.

If Jackson wanted to make this film longer, why didn't he do it by developing the characters more deeply. We have a company of 13 characters in this film and at the end of it I know almost nothing about them. Apart from maybe Thorin, the dwarves are completely interchangeable, distinguishable almost exclusively by beard style. Let's also not start with Gandalf who in this film alternates between incompetence and walking deus ex machina.

Some of these problems are there in the source material, but they're just exacerbated and underlined by this film's epic 169 minute running time. I was frequently reminded of the running gag from Monty Python and the Holy Grail were the film would frequently cut to a large crowd or God yelling at the film to "Get on with it!"

That's not to say it's a total wash. Some of the light comedy is effective, and once the Dwarves leave Rivendel, the momentum really picks up with a rip-roaring action sequence where the company is kidnapped by Goblins. The elaborate razzle-dazzle of it all almost makes all the set up worth it. It's so good that I caught myself thinking that maybe Jackson knew what he was doing after all, and settled in for a good time, but then the movie ended. Maybe the next two films will be better. Maybe Jackson will remember how to tell stories economically and deliver something that will make all this set up worth it, but this film is 169 minutes and covers only the first 120 pages of it's source material and that is unforgivable. The fact that it only feels 40 minutes too long is a strange but dubious victory.

Grade: C+

Note: The film was shot in a new process called HFR. Basically it means that the film was shot at twice the usual frame rate. This theoretically creates more natural motion and improves the quality and clarity of the image, particularly in 3D. A lot of people have disliked it, it's an odd effect. Until my eyes adjusted it seemed almost as if the film was on fast forward. But once I became accustomed, I really dug it, particularly in the night scenes (a notorious problem spot with 3D). When HFR works, the image looks almost disconcertingly real, as if you're watching history's most expensive play. What's more, the frame rate is easy on the eyes. After 2 1/2 hours of constant, intense 3D, I had no eye-strain whatsoever. It's not for everyone, many people just can't stand the look. If you plan on seeing the film in 3D, I'd give it a shot. Otherwise just stick with traditional 2D.

THE ADVENTURES OF TINTIN

The Tintin comics are kinda like soccer, popular everywhere except America. It's a real shame too, because if Steven Spielberg's new film adaptation is any indication, we've been missing out on some great  adventures. For the uninitiated, Tintin was created by Belgian artist Hergé in the late 20's. The comics are notable for their innovative artwork and also being fun and whimsical.

This film is primarily based on the 11th book of the series The Secret of the Unicorn and bits and pieces from other entries. But all you really need to know is that Tintin (Jamie Bell) is basically Indiana Jones as a kid. Instead of being an archeologist, he's a boy reporter. He travels the world with his dog Snowy solving mysteries and getting into trouble.

We find the intrepid newskid at an outdoor market buying a model ship named the Unicorn. He has no particular interest in the ship beyond his love of history. But several parities have a much more immediate interest, particularly the villainous Sakharine (Daniel Craig) who's more than willing to kill to get his grubby hands on the model. As Tintin works to solve the case, he teams up with the comically inebriated Captain Haddock (a fantastic performance by Andy Serkis). Haddock knows a lot about the model, but only when he's sober—a very rare occurrence!

Spielberg has been trying to make this film, in one form or another, for about 30 years. The passion that he and producer Peter Jackson have for this character is positively infectious. There is a level of visual inventiveness here that is not often displayed in cinema. In one sequence we see two galleons. Both ships are being rocked back and forth by tremendous waves. They become entangled at the mast. The bigger ship tips back upright pulling the smaller ship out of the water entirely. The smaller ship dangles from the sails as pirates leap down from one ship to the other! In another scene two characters fight in an elaborate duel but instead of swords, the combatants stand behind the controls of giant cranes. Every time it seems the film cannot possibly have another great sequence, Spielberg pulls another great gag out of his bag of tricks!

pictured: excitement!

In a way, this is a return to a Spielberg we haven't seen since the 80's. But another way, this is a new Spielberg. The motion-caption techniques gives the film an improvisational feeling while still being animated. The style has all the creativity of animation, the gravity of live-action but never stumbles into the uncanny-valley as Robert Zemeckis has while using similar techniques. This film has freed Spielberg, it's a filmmakers imagination transcribed directly onto the screen. He can go anywhere, do anything. This film, this character has empowered him in a way I've never seen.

If the film is successful in America (it's already done gangbusters overseas), the sequel will be directed by Peter Jackson after he finishes The Hobbit. It's a shame that we're going to have to wait that long.

Grade: A

For those wishing to read the comics but don't know which of Tintin's 24 adventures to start with, the AVclub has recently published a very nice guide which you can find here. I've only read bits and pieces of comics, but I'm gonna run out and buy them at the earliest opportunity