As the lights went down to start “The Hobbit”, I was surprised by the sense of foreboding that came over me. It wasn’t a strong feeling; I was just suddenly aware of the darkness, the diminishing chatter and the late-comers moving towards their seats. My wife told me later she felt exactly the same way. It was the “Aurora Effect” on a weekend when kindergarteners were mercilessly slaughtered in their classrooms. This is America now. This is how we are.
Many years ago I tried to slog my way through J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Hobbit”. I simply couldn’t keep up with the bewildering array of dwarves, elves, trolls and other denizens of Middle Earth. That’s why I’m grateful to Peter Jackson for his realization of the Ring Trilogy, and now “The Hobbit”. For me, these movies are the cinematic version the old Classics Illustrated comic books. Before I eventually read the Dickens text of “A Tale of Two Cities” in high school, I’d already read the comic book. Ditto “Rip Van Winkle and the Headless Horseman” and a bunch of others. But there was nothing available, in 1969, to make “The Hobbit” go down a little easier; the kid sitting behind me in U.S. history muttering “Bilbo Baggins is a hobbit” not withstanding.
In terms of style and substance, Jackson breaks no new ground in “The Hobbit”;nor should he have been expected to. As George Lucas is bounded by the universe he created, so Jackson must be constrained to the realm of Middle Earth as envisioned by Tolkien. And, as in LOR, there’s a quest to be completed and quests necessarily involve lot of walking and battling. These episodes are set pieces which are interchangeable with the earlier movies. Nothing new, and even a little wearying by the time the troupe have to battle an endless hoard of goblins in a maze of caverns. There’s no subplot to relieve the viewer. But for fighting, talking and walking there’s little else to propel the movie for nearly three hours.
On the other side of that sameness coin, however, “The Hobbit” maintains the spectacular visual eye candy that makes Jackson’s Middle Earth a truly other-worldly place. The Shire, with its verdant fields and green-before-green-was-cool hobbit homes evokes Thomas Kinkade-style idealization without the sappiness. The computer generated imagery of the realm of the elves, with its soft edges and slightly pastel palette is straight up Maxfield Parrish. The fortresses are massive, the vistas expansive and the skies are awe inspiring. And even without CGI, Jackson finds New Zealand locations that are frequently breathtaking. Endor of the Star Wars universe has nothing on sylvan Rhovanion.
I was surprised and pleased to see familiar faces back for cameos: Elijah Wood, Christopher Lee, the ethereally beautiful Cate Blanchett. As she paced the battlement, serene and regal, with a golden-red sunrise behind her, my mind wandered briefly and I wondered if Galadriel ever got her legs up on the mantle.
On a very difficult weekend, “The Hobbit” was a nice escape. Despite its length it lagged only in a few spots and I never got impatient. As expected “The Hobbit” provided spectacle and humor and familiarity. And for the most part, only the bad guys got killed.
I needed that.