The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey instal the last version for ios

In an age of super-nihilists, Tolkien’s tale of unlikely heroes may seem more hopelessly old-fashioned than ever. Ian McKellen’s irrepressible Gandalf is more charming than he has ever been, and, happily, gets more screen time and action than ever before.īilbo, of course, is the heart of the film, and Martin Freeman, who starts off a bit nervily in the early sequences, develops him beautifully as his story progresses.

He carries the weight of a long and melancholy history, but the film allows us to glimpse the grumpy, fallible Thorin of the book only occasionally. Thorin is played handsomely, if a little too grandiosely, by Richard Armitage. This film narrows its emotional focus down to three heroes in the making. Since 13 dwarves are about 10 too many for an ensemble cast, most of the Free Erebor company, at least in this instalment, are more easily identified by their beards than their names.

In fact, the structure of An Unexpected Journey doesn’t echo the book so much as the first film of the LOTR trilogy, The Fellowship of the Ring, with its narrative highs and lows arriving at suspiciously familiar places, and with the dispossessed dwarven king, Thorin Oakenshield, coming to stand in for Aragorn, the dispossessed human king. But while stretching the text out may be good for extended fights with wolves, it weakens the movie as an adaptation, and ascribes a scale to The Hobbit that it does not actually possess. This serves all the classic sequences-the Bag End party, the riddle game, the trolls-well. The luxury of time allows Jackson to leave every memorable line and scene from the book in place.

Grim, stiff and joyless, Jackson’s vision of the elven settlement Rivendell is a holdover from the warlike LOTR trilogy they are a rare case where the film’s aesthetic seems unequal to the task of recreating Tolkien’s world. Nothing seems dated or awkward, except for the elves, with Hugo Weaving and Cate Blanchett reprising their roles as Elrond and Galadriel in cameo. The CGI effects are superb Jackson’s Middle-earth comes alive in even more gorgeous detail than before. Never is this more evident than in the outstanding action sequences in which the dwarven company fights off trolls and orcs (or goblins), all created by Tolkien with the sort of light touch that he was never to display in his works for older readers. The Hobbit is a children’s book, and An Unexpected Journey is, unequivocally, a children’s film.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey instal the last version for ios