After the Lord of the Rings trilogy wrapped up in 2003 and the production of The Hobbit was announced in 2007, finally the wait is over. Bilbo Baggins—the titular hobbit—is not just getting his own prequel movie, but an entire trilogy.
The story finds a younger Bilbo (Martin Freeman) minding his own business in the idyllic village of the Shire, when the wizard Gandalf (Ian McKellen) pays him an impromptu visit with 13 dwarves in tow. The dwarves were forced to abandon their home—and vast treasure—under the Lonely Mountain, which has been taken over by the dragon Smaug. Led by would-be king Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitage), the group is on a quest to reclaim their land, and want Bilbo as their accomplice. What ensues is a rollicking adventure across Middle Earth, where the motley crew battles trolls, encounters giants, and hears perturbing rumors of necromancers emerging from the mountains. Of course, Bilbo has his run-in with Gollum, leading to him finding the all-important “precious” ring.
Unlike the first series of movies, Bilbo, Gandalf and company aren’t setting out to save the world from the forces of evil, rendering the film much less urgent yet much more personal. The movie’s sheer length—especially as the source material is about one-third of Lord of the Rings’—means there’s plenty of room to show off every corner of Middle Earth and every monstrous battle. However, in a bid to add more gravitas to the story, the writers added in multiple scenes that overtly connect happenings here to Lord of the Rings’ big villain Sauron. While necessary, these call-backs occasionally come off as trying too hard to convince the viewers that, yes, everything in the movie is important, too, not just the ring scene.
For a man of 73, McKellen does an impressive amount of running around and staff-brandishing; and Andy Serkis as Gollum somehow manages to go from endearing to creepy to hilarious and back again in the single scene he gets. Martin Freeman undoubtedly steals the show as Bilbo, though—Peter Jackson was certainly onto something when he reworked his entire shooting schedule to accommodate him. With his aptitude for playing seemingly very ordinary characters who end up dealing with extraordinary circumstances, or people (Sherlock, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy), he was practically made for the role. While clocking in at almost three hours, this first installment in the trilogy never feels slow, and strikes a perfect balance between humor, drama and action—whether it can sustain such success through two more epic movies, though, still remains to be seen.
