Director: Peter Jackson
Cast: Ian McKellen, Martin Freeman, Richard Armitage, James Nesbitt
Have I Seen it Before: Yes. At various times in my life, I’ve been dragged to the theater to movies based on Tolkien’s work. I’m usually tired by the end of them, and I end up steadfastly refusing to see the rest of their respective trilogies. Before someone gets unduly bent out of shape, I’ll just say that I did not in any sense grow up with Tolkien’s work, so it didn’t mean much to have the works finally transferred to film. I’m also not a fan of high fantasy, so while the films could be the greatest ever produced, they just aren’t made for me.
Did I Like It: And so it is interesting that with this second trilogy that everyone kind of took my side in their reactions and collectively shrugged. Even my wife, who counts The Lord of the Rings trilogy as among her favorite films has yet to catch the final entry in this newer trilogy. The most obvious explanation for the film’s flaws is that it beggars all understanding that the shorter book is somehow forced to expand itself over an only slightly shorter trilogy than its progenitor. One can easily imagine that the studio was so desperate to recreate the success of the earlier films, even if the process of doing so simply didn’t make sense on its face.
The film is jammed with the same long-form clattering of incidents, trappings of sword and sorcery which launched more than a few D & D games*, and references that I’m certain mean a great deal to some, but next to nothing to me. Every other film in creation, I’m at liberty to be bored if the film stops for long sections of V.O. narration. With these films, I’m expected to ooh and ahh my way for three hours.
Which, I suppose, does make my feelings about these Hobbit films just as controversial as my views on Rings. I think there all of similar quality. Sacrilegious, I know.
But the problems become more fundamental—dare I say, philosophical—than that. I may be a Hobbit at heart. I want to stay in the Shire, and hear people sing songs, and eat dinner, and be left alone to write my books. My ideal version of this story would be obviously much, much shorter.
I get that I may be missing the point, but no level of elaboration, I think, is going to bring me around.
*Where my character would inevitably become inconsolably suicidal, so I could get home earlier.