Monsters & Mullets: The Hobbit (2012)

Oh man, this movie. Where do we even begin?

In case you’re not familiar with The Hobbit’s tortured journey to the screen, Guillermo del Toro spent years in pre-production, only to leave at the last minute. New Line wanted the film out on time, however - I suspect to coincide with the 75th anniversary of the novel’s publication - and talked Peter Jackson into taking over. Where The Lord of the Rings had been a long-gestating labour of love, The Hobbit is a rushed mess… and it shows. It’s overlong, over-complicated, relies too heavily on CG, and departs from the source material in increasingly ridiculous ways. Ian McKellen famously nearly quit in frustration, and Jackson’s exhaustion is evident in every frame of the films.

And An Unexpected Journey is the best of the three! By the time we get to The Battle of Five Armies, Tolkien’s sweet children’s novel about an unassuming fellow discovering a few surprising things about himself is limping its bloated, weighty, laughable transition to the big screen towards an exhausting conclusion. It’s a terrible pity.

I’ve written extensively about The Hobbit in the past, both the book, which is one of my all-time favourites, and the awful films. And the good film! I mean, good relatively; I know the 1977 version is not everyone’s cup of tea.

Let’s get drinking.

Pictured, left to right, top row: Gandalf, Bilbo, Sting, Dame Edna (dead), Gollum, Gandalf’s hat. Bottom row: Thorin, dunno, dunno, Old Dwarf, Bald Dwarf, Stupid Hat Dwarf, dunno, Hot Dwarf, Slightly Less Hot Dwarf, dunno, dunno, Slingshot Dwarf, maybe?, Fat Dwarf.

It begins promisingly enough, with Howard Shore’s score emerging from the darkness, starting with the Hobbit theme familiar from Lord of the Rings, and Ian Holm reprising his role as old Bilbo… and he’s telling us about Dale and the dwarves of the Lonely Mountain and then, boom, DRAGON. Why are we getting a prologue rather than learning this information alongside Bilbo during the action of the film itself? Because this movie is more padded than a Victorian asylum. Hilariously, we see Thranduil watch the chaos of Smaug’s attack on the Lonely Mountain from atop his WAR-MOOSE before noping out. Lee Pace, who plays Thranduil, is 100% my favourite thing about this godforsaken trilogy. He’s so extra.

Back in Hobbiton, Old Bilbo’s still talking to himself and then.. oh, for god’s sake, Frodo wanders through the scene. I mean, come on. There’s no need whatsoever for this film to be opening on the day of Bilbo’s 111th birthday party, as seen at the beginning of Fellowship, or for Frodo to be wandering around, but here we are. GET TO THE PLOT, MOVIE.

Old Bilbo takes a puff of his pipe and blows a smoke-ring; the title card shows; Gandalf appears and we pan through the smoke to young Bilbo. Hiya, Martin Freeman. He is so well cast, and it’s such a waste. Anyway, he and Gandalf trade witticisms - or, at least, Gandalf drops witticisms while Bilbo looks baffled. Long story short, Gandalf inscribes a mark on Bilbo’s door and before long, dwarves begin to appear on his stoop.

A note on the dwarves: the costume and production designers wanted to make them all look different in profile and in silhouette, which is why they mostly look… well, they look ridiculous. One of the film’s many problems is that the dwarves look and act like they come from a children’s novel - which they do - but the film doesn’t always treat them like they’re in a children’s novel. It’s a tonal mess. And regardless of how they look, they are mostly an interchangeable mass. There’s old dwarf, fat dwarf, bald dwarf, two hot young dwarves, stupid-hat dwarf, slingshot dwarf… and some others. There’s also Your Bad Boyfriend from High School dwarf, Thorin, played with maximum sulk and glower by Richard Armitage. Thorin is mean to Bilbo from the beginning, which all the other dwarves – and Gandalf – tolerate rather than telling him to chill the fuck out. Bilbo, for some reason, seems to tie his sense of self-worth to Thorin’s approval. See? Bad boyfriend. I dunno. I guess they felt they had to manufacture interparty conflict from somewhere.

Glower.

So, despite the fact that we got the backstory about Smaug and the Lonely Mountain in the prologue, this fucking scene in Bilbo’s little house takes thirty-five excruciating minutes. There’s very little information left to convey, given the work of the prologue: the dwarves are going back to the mountain, Gandalf has key and map, Bilbo is their burglar and OH MY GOD this ENDLESS FUCKING SCENE is lasts for FIVE BILLION YEARS and it should take ten minutes tops. Get GOING.

Old Dwarf tries to talk Thorin out of going back to the Lonely Mountain  because they’re all pretty comfortable and happy now, but Thorin does not like comfort or happiness; he likes Kerouac and joyless veganism and sneaking cigarettes behind the gym. The dwarves then sing because THIS ENDLESS SCENE WILL NEVER END I AM GOING TO DIE OF BOREDOMMMMMMMMMM.

Seriously, Bilbo leaves his house to chase after the dwarves and join their quest FORTY MINUTES INTO THE MOVIE. This is literally THE FIRST CHAPTER OF THE NOVEL. And we have so much more filler to get through. How can there be two hours and 9 minutes left of this movie. HOW.

WELL, I’LL TELL YOU HOW. The scene were Bilbo decides to go along and chases after the dwarves takes one minutes and nine seconds. It should take… 15? Twenty? Instead we get SIXTY-NINE SECONDS OF BILBO RUNNING.

Run Bilbo run Bilbo run run runDon’t give the audience their fun fun fun

More filler: shots of dwarves riding, Thorin sulking, Gandalf gandalfing. And then, oh hey, then we get a shot of a dwarf snoring, breathing in moths when he inhales and then breathing them out again. What the HELL. Which dwarf is it, you ask? I don’t know and it doesn’t matter anyway. Bilbo feeds his pony an apple in secret because he’s afraid Thorin will yell at him if he catches Bilbo doing something nice with no expectation of reward, I guess. While doing so he hears some squawking and learns that there are orcs running around somewhere out there. Fili and Kili make a joke about orcs which Thorin overhears. Thorin, a good leader who’s aware of his duty to make his youngest and most inexperienced team-members take a very dangerous enemy seriously, responds with an appropriately gentle rebuke  -- oh, I jest; this is Thorin, after all. He’s like FUCK YOU I HAVE A TRAGIC BACKSTORY YOU FUCKIN FUCKS and sulks off to go listen to the Reservoir Dogs soundtrack on his Walkman, and we learn THORIN’S TRAGIC BACKSTORY. This should be a fucking two minute voice-over but instead is a giant flashback to a huge battle. We see a giant white orc behead Thorin’s dad, and then Thorin fights the white orc and hacks off his arm and then glowers and leads the dwarves in battle, and it’s all so unnecessary. The white orc is Azog the Defiler. This scene is meant to establish Thorin’s warrior cred, but motherfucker’s leading a group of 12 dwarves against A DRAGON; we don’t need we already know he lost his home and family to a dragon; nor do we need proof that he’s a badass because he’s leading twelve tiny men to GO FIGHT A DRAGON TO TAKE HIS HOME BACK. He’s either badass or crazy, or both, and we already know it.

I wouldn’t mind this scene so much if it weren’t one of seventy nine thousand such scenes padding out the film, but as it is it’s just one more unnecessary addition to the plot. Anyway, Thorin drops in one more I FUCKIN HATE ORCS before storming off, and Gandalf makes a sad face because the leader of this utterly outmatched and absolutely doomed expedition has the emotional maturity of a turnip.

Anyway, only ten more minutes have passed in this interminable fucking movie, and I remind you, this is the best of the three Hobbit films.

The group rides through a rainstorm that was clearly filmed on a sunny day, and if you had any doubts whatsoever that Peter Jackson lost the will to live while making these movies, this is the moment that will prove it. A detail like the fact that the sun is OBVIOUSLY SHINING during this ‘rainstorm’ would NEVER EVER EVER have been allowed to make it into the final cut of the Lord of the Rings films. Hell, Jackson probably would have held off on filming it until it was storming for real. But here… they just bring in some sprinklers and move on. It’s such a fucking waste.

So THIS endless scene is … oh god, it’s to introduce the wizards. There are five, only three of which they had the rights to use in this movie, so only three of them get names. Gandalf, Saruman and Radagast the shit-covered.

Cut to… Radagast, running about the forest. He’s upset by dead CG animals and slimy mushrooms. The dead animals would hit a lot harder if they looked REMOTELY realistic. Anyway, he gets to his house, and tries to nurse an ailing hedgehog back to life, only to have the house be… attacked by giant spiders? This is all in service of introducing the Necromancer who just doesn’t matter. They can’t make him matter in these films no matter how hard they try because he doesn’t matter. The Necromancer is not a threat. Radagast gets into his sled, which is pulled by rabbits, and heads out into the wilderness. Back to the dwarves: they find a decrepit farmhouse and decide to pitch up there for the night. Gandalf’s like ‘this is a bad idea; let’s just go to Rivendell’ but Thorin’s too busy glowering and ordering people about to listen to his wizard, and anyway Thorin fuckin hates elves, because one time an elf on a war-moose decided not to fight a dragon. I mean, I respect a grudge, but Thorin’s such an asshole. Smaug’s really big! I probably wouldn’t fight him either!

Gandalf storms off and Bilbo’s the only party-member who seems the least bit concerned about it. Fili, Kili and Bilbo go looking for trouble and find it in the shape of three trolls. F&K make Bilbo burgle the trolls. We watch the trolls argue and sneeze into their soup and make booger jokes because that’s the kind of movie this is, I guess, except when it isn’t. Jesus Christ, the tonal shifts. Decide what kind of movie you want to make before you film, okay?

Anyway, a troll scratches its butt, then blows its nose on Bilbo because… that’s funny? F&K try to rescue Bilbo and get caught. The rest of the dwarves follow. So, um, if they have this much trouble against three trolls what, exactly, is their plan when they go up against Smaug? Melt fifteen million cubic tons of gold and dump it on the dragon? Oh, wait.

Bilbo saves the dwarves first by telling the trolls that dwarves have parasites, and then by listening to the trolls talk about their weakness (sunlight) and distracting them long enough for the sun to come up. I <3 Bilbo. Gandalf shows up and distracts them for just a few minutes more, and then dawn arrives and boom, trollstone.

I respect you too much to screencap the boogers and the butt-scratching.

Thorin, gracious as always, is like FUCKIN BILBO RUINED EVERYTHING. Ah, blaming the least experienced member of the team for the group’s mistakes. Great leadership there, bud. Gandalf points out that actually Bilbo saved everyone, Thorin, and then they exchange some dark tidings and go looking for the trolls’ cave. Thorin finds a sword and is just about to take it for himself when Gandalf tells him it’s elf-forged. Thorin is hilariously like FUCK THAT I FUCKIN HATE ELVES AND THEIR FUCKIN SWORDS and starts to toss it away, but Gandalf makes him keep it anyway because Jesus H Christ, Thorin; chill out. Gandalf also gets a sword. Then Gandalf finds a little dagger and gives it to Bilbo. Bilbo tries not to accept it, Gandalf lectures him about how true courage is knowing when to spare a life, and Martin Freeman does a very good job playing confused. The medium is the message, Gandalf, and you just gave Bilbo a murderstick.

Rather than moving on, the film grinds to yet another halt as Radagast appears to spread his own dark tidings to Gandalf. Bilbo and the dwarves and I register our very serious doubts about this dude as we watch him struggle to explain himself to Gandalf. There’s a bug in his mouth, ffs. We get Radagast’s flashback adventures in a falling-down ruin with the Necromancer and the witch-kings. Radagast gives Gandalf a witch-king’s sword just as a warg atttacks the group. Radagast draws the wargs off with his magical fast rabbits and Thorin & Co. go running through the hills, but Radagast is sort of more leading the wargs in a circle than he’s leading them away, so it’s a fairly ineffective escape. They run across an open field, so of course the orcs fucking find them. Gandalf leads the dwarves into a cave as elves appear and chase the orcs off. Oooh, Thorin’s not going to like that!

Gandalf prevails and takes the team to Rivendell. Bilbo - hey, remember him? The title character? - he’s pretty chuffed about Rivendell. Thorin, naturally, gets pissy, all FUCKIN ELVES I FUCKIN HATE ELVES, HOW COULD YOU BETRAY US LIKE THIS GANDALF and Gandalf looks like he wants to ground him. DO IT, GROUND HIM. Take away his phone for a month! Gandalf instead gently lectures Thorin.

Thorin next sulks at Elrond, who is really nice to him in response, and when Elrond says something in Elvish and Thorin yells about being insulted or whatever Gandalf explains that Elrond has actually just invited them to dinner, Thorin, you big baby; stop sulking and come have some lettuce. We learn that dwarves do not like leafy veg. We also learn that there are chips in Middle Earth. Oh, hey, the first woman we’ve yet seen appears one hour and 27 minutes into this film and she’s playing the flute while a load of boys eat. Yay.

Elrond tells Thorin and Gandalf the history of their magical orc-killing swords. Thorin sulks. Old Dwarf insults Bilbo’s little dagger. Thorin refuses to tell Elrond about their mission. Gandalf bullies Thorin into showing Elrond the map of the Lonely Mountain. Elrond finds the secret writing, and tells them about the thrush knocking at midnight, etc. This would be a great time to continue with the plot—lol guys, this is actually a great time for some PADDING. First, we have orcs talking to Azog (who has a white warg, because he’s committed to his aesthetic). Oh, wait, is this supposed to be the big reveal that Azog is stilll alive? Are they at Weathertop? I think so. I don’t know. Who cares. Blah blah blah.

Meanwhile, the dwarves sit around Rivendell carousing and making fat jokes at Bombour’s expense. Who cares; we have MORE PADDING TO PAD. Galadriel and Saruman join Elrond and Gandalf. Hail, hail, the gang’s all here. They talk and talk and talk and Gandalf looks as bored as I feel. Galadriel and Gandalf have a psychic convo while Saruman insults Radagast. Sauroman can barely hide his boner at the sight of the witch-king’s sword. Honestly, no one in this film has any chill at all.

This might be the exact moment that Ian McKellen lost the will to live while filming.

Saruman drones on and on until Galadriel realises that Gandalf is letting everyone talk at him for seventy million hours so that the dwarves can sneak out of Rivendell without Saruman knowing about it. In a more efficiently plotted, lighter-on-its-feet film than this, a scene that is literally set up as a time-waster might feel less like an insult to the audience. But The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is not that film. Instead, this scene goes on for endless fucking minutes of utterly meaningless meta-plot exposition when all of this total bullshit could have been cut down to about 30 seconds of cross-cuts between Saruman droning and the dwarves packing up and heading out.

Literally the only important thing to come out of this five-billion-year long scene is when Galadriel asks Gandalf why he wanted Bilbo to go along on the quest. Gandalf replies that it’s small things and ordinary people, and simple acts of kindness and love, that keep the darkness at bay. A better film (and trilogy) would have kept Bilbo at the exact centre of the story: he’s the heart of the team, and his kindness and gentleness are something that everyone else (including Bilbo himself) come to appreciate too late. He is, after all, the titular character, so the story needs to develop who he is and what his personal journey might look like to justify not only including him on the team, but to justify his position as the film’s central character. But this film forgets, over and over, that Bilbo, not Thorin or Gandalf or Smaug or Bard or Elrond or the war-moose or whoever, is the main character and the pivot-point on which the entire trilogy balances. The more padding Jackson et al. add to the story, the further we get from Bilbo, and the weaker the films become. Which is why two and three are so awful. At least this movie is occasionally about Bilbo.

So the dwarves slip out of Rivendell and hit the road. After much too much time spent watching the party walk through the mountains, we get to the meat of this next bit. It’s pouring down rain, and rock giants are throwing boulders at each other. Keep in mind that this is happening during a thunder storm in the mountains in the middle of the night. Bilbo nearly dies through no fault of his own because there are fucking rock giants throwing boulders at each other during a thunderstorm, but Thorin saves Bilbo and then really goes to town on him, all FUCK YOU YOU FUCKIN HOBBIT, YOU’RE USELESS AND DON’T BELONG, GO HOME AND EAT A CRUMPET. Bilbo, who is an adult and did not sign onto this trip to be yelled at by a hot man with the emotional maturity of an angry seventeen-year-old, waits until the others are asleep and then tries to sneak away so he can go home. Unfortunately, goblins.

Now comes the weirdest and most ill-advised sequence in the whole film, and that is saying so much: the goblin fight, starring Dame Edna as the goblin king. This whole sequence is played like it’s a Saturday morning cartoon. There’s even Wilhelm scream. It’s so fucking weird, made worse still by the Goblin King. Barry Humphries, best known as his character Dame Edna, has a great voice and seems to be having a blast playing the Goblin King, but wtf even is this. There’s more menace in the character of Rasputin from the 1997 animated version of Anastasia, and that guy’s a fucking zombie with a chorus of dancing bugs.

Anyway, Dame Edna tells Thorin that Azog is still alive. Thorin sulks. I’m so bored I take a picture of a tiny goblin scribe on his tiny goblin swing.

Back to Bilbo! Bilbo manages to evade capture and goes sneaking after the dwarves to save them but is attacked by a goblin - a distressingly CG goblin - and they fight and fall down a hole and you know what comes next. RIDDLES IN THE DARK. Fuck yeah. The hole they fall into just so happens to be inhabited by a tiny, twisted, monster. Bilbo watches in horror as Gollum beats the goblin to death – in a superb detail, we see Sting flicker out as the goblin dies. Gollum’s ring falls out of his pocket and Bilbo scoops it up, but Gollum sneaks up on Bilbo while he’s distracted. Gollum would very much like to eat Bilbo, but Bilbo’s not so keen on that and so Gollum proposes a game: they tell each other riddles, and if Gollum tells one that Bilbo can’t answer, he gets to eat Bilbo. If Bilbo catches Gollum out, Gollum will show him the exit. Gollum is very excited about riddles, as well he should be. My god, he must get so bored down there.

Bilbo’s riddles are sweet and Gollum’s are horrible. Yes, ‘what have I got in my pocket’ is cheating, but the film plays it off as an accident, which is the best we could hope for. Gollum loses, sorely, and decides to eat Bilbo anyway, only to realise he’s lost his ring. He massively freaks out, to Bilbo’s dismay, and Gollum figures out that Bilbo must have the ring. Bilbo steals a move from his nephew and falls over, and the ring falls onto his finger, and boom: invisible. He then follows Gollum to the exit.

Meanwhile, Dame Edna sings a happy song about killing dwarves until he catches sight of Thorin’s sword, which is the exact moment Gandalf makes his appearance in a dramatic puff of smoke and light. Fighty fight fight. The dwarves successfully battle seven gazillion goblins, somehow. Several laws of physics are broken. Gandalf beheads a goblin and then disembowels Dame Edna. And then slits his throat through his goiter. But there’s no blood because this is a kids’ movie! Or something! The dwarves survive a nine billion foot drop and wind up by the exit. Dead Dame Edna falls atop them, because that’s what kind of film this is. They run for the exit. Invisibilbo sees them and follows by hopping over Gollum rather than killing him. Oh, Bilbo. Your act of mercy is going to come back to haunt a lot of people in a few decades.

We still have half an hour of movie to go, somehow. Bilbo overhears the dwarves wondering where he is, and then Thorin’s like MOTHERFUCKIN HOBBIT FUCKIN DUMPED US, I HATE HIM MORE THAN I HATE ELVES AND I REALLY FUCKIN HATE ELVES, FUCK THAT GUY SO HARD, because even though he explicitly told Bilbo to leave, he’s still pissed of that it seems Bilbo… left. So Bilbo pops the ring off to reveal himself, and everyone’s happy to see him except for his bad boyfriend, Thorin. Thorin, say it with me, sulks. Bilbo says he came back because he misses his home, and the dwarves haven’t got a home, and so he’s going to help them get their home back. Thorin, in a brief moment of self-awareness, actually looks a little shame-faced at that. Grow up, you jerk.

Meanwhile, Azog has caught wind of the party. The dwarves run, but it’s hard to outrun GIANT WOLF-MONSTERS. Whoops; the running has brought them to the edge of a very tall cliff. They climb trees and Gandalf finds a moth and sends it to get the eagles. What is the relationship between eagles and moths? Thorin finally sets eyes on his ex-girlfriend Azog and glowers. The wargs push the trees containing dwarves over like dominoes, leaving them all stranded in a single tree on the edge of a precipice. Gandalf starts throwing fiery pine cones at the wargs, which only briefly helps. The tree begins to collapse over the cliff. Thorin deals with his feelings by heroically stomping off the tree and fighting Azog, a moment that would be somewhat more heroic if ALL HIS COMPANIONS WEREN’T ABOUT TO FALL TO THEIR DEATHS. Anyway, Azog knocks Thorin out with distressing ease (again, how are they going to fight the giant fucking dragon?) and then Bilbo hops into the fray and runs over to save his bad boyfriend and faces down Azog himself. This goads the other dwarves into action; they swarm off their collapsing tree and join the battle. Hurrah, the moth is back! And it brought friends! The eagles swoop in and save the day, thankfully, because the dwarves are getting their asses handed to them.

They fly for a long time, I guess, because now it’s sunrise (and the last battle began at sunset). Bilbo shoots worried glances at his bad boyfriend, who’s out stone-cold. Bilbo, Thorin will always love being angry at the world more than he will love you. Bad boyfriends are all the same. Learn to love yourself, and then go find someone who appreciates you for the person you are.

DTMF.

The eagles drop everyone off atop a very tall rock. Gandalf magics Thorin awake. Thorin’s first word is ‘Bilbo?’ which he follows by getting up and yelling at Bilbo then giving him a big hug because that’s how bad boyfriends do it. Bilbo, it’s emotional manipulation; he doesn’t deserve you. Thorin may say he’s sorry, but he’s just going to do it over and over again until he gets stabbed through the foot by a goblin in a frozen river and dies in your arms.

Thorin stops beaming at Bilbo long enough to catch sight the Lonely Mountain on the horizon… but there’s an awfully big forest between the dwarves and the mountain. Hope y’all like spiders.

We end the film by following the camera into the Lonely Mountain. Inside: gold, and lots of it. And… A REALLY BIG EYE. See you next time! Or not, because the 2nd movie isn’t available on Netflix and life is short.

I… just can’t with this film. The misused talent. The squandered opportunity. There are no women. There are no people of color. Bilbo is reduced to a spectator in his own story. Thorin’s a giant baby. Gandalf looks like he wants to cry. There’s nothing but padding and distracting cameos and mediocre CG and more padding. It’s such a waste.

I edit books, not film (thank god), so I’m not remotely qualified to talk about how the film is edited qua film. (This guy, pulling apart the editing of a scene in Bohemian Rhapsody, absolutely is; if you have even the most casual interest in the nitty-gritty of film editing, you should absolutely watch it.) But I can edit a story and this story needs so much editing. Giving them the benefit of the doubt, I accept that Jackson and his team had to figure out a way to turn a fairly efficient children’s novel into three films - almost certainly at the behest of a money-hungry studio. So they had to develop multiple subplots, no matter how tangentially related to the main story, and manufacture more conflict, and tie it all into The Lord of the Rings (moreso than the story about how the ring was rediscovered already ties the two series together…) because god forbid we forget for even a moment that this is a prequel to the Lord of the Rings.

I suspect there were also a lot of very loud voices telling Jackson what he ‘needed’ to include the films - ‘each LotR movie had a big battle scene, so make sure each Hobbit film does too!’ ‘Everyone will want to see Frodo again!’ ‘Legolas, but he’s part of a love-triangle!’ - and I suspect Jackson either didn’t have the power or didn’t have the will to fight back. If indeed he even wanted to; after all, the LotR films are undeniably great, but nearly all the elements that pull the Hobbit films down are present in those early films, too. Those films, however, tell their stories better than this film and its sequels do. There’s not enough time or space in the LotR films to pad, nor is there any great need, so the storytelling is necessarily much more economical. Here, the story’s as flabby as the Goblin King’s goiter… and it shows.

Enough already. Let’s move on with our lives. Next week: we go sci-fi with Enemy Mine.

Monsters: There are no humans at all in this film! At least, none with speaking parts. I guess we get some shots of the humans of Dale. Otherwise it’s dwarves and wizards and elves and goblins and orcs and trolls and Gollum and elves and giant bunnies and gianter spiders and a war-moose.

Mullets: Slingshot Dwarf has the mulletiest hairstyle, but they’re all pretty bad. Bombur has a giant neckbeard braid!

Hookers, Victims and Doormats: There are no women in this film besides Galadriel, who is there to spout meta-plot. On the one hand, she’s not a hooker, a victim or a doormat. On the other hand, there’s no reason for her to be in the film at all.

Remake watch: Still dunno what Amazon’s going to do with all the Tolkien stuff. Hey, if anyone knows Topher Grace, can you get him to cut this trilogy down to a single film-length adaptation of the book, the way he edited the Star Wars prequel trilogy into something not awful, please?