The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

Finally, Bilbo Baggins returns to the Shire. After three bloated movies originating from around 300 pages of content, we've reached the end and I'm so glad to be done with it all. After a total of six movies set in Peter Jackson's Middle Earth, I'm totally fine with never hearing the word Hobbit again. His HOBBIT series concludes with the grand finale, THE BATTLE OF THE FIVE ARMIES. When we last saw Bilbo (Martin Freeman), Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitage), and their company of dwarven companions, they had been left to gape helplessly as the dragon Smaug (voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch) got tired of chasing them through the mountain kingdom of Erebor and took to the skies to burn neighboring Laketown to cinders. This movie rejoins the action at that very moment, abandoning the dwarfs to focus on Smaug and local hero Bard (Luke Evans), who chooses to engage the dragon. Ten or so minutes later, the whole dragon plot that kept us trudging to the theater for these movies is resolved and we spend the next three hours on the titular battle. You see, Thorin immediately begins to succumb to what the dwarfs call "dragon-sickness" and what us normal folk would call "greed". He's got his rightful kingdom back with more gold than he could ever need, and now he refuses to share it with anyone. The men of Laketown, led by Bard, come knocking in hopes of at least getting some gold for their dwarven-caused dragon troubles (i.e. the incineration of their entire town) and Thorin refuses. Even the woodland elves of Mirkwood Forest come stomping in with an army to demand a share. And, of course, the orc commander Azog has unfinished business with Thorin, having devoted two full previous movies to hunting the would-be dwarven king in hope of ending his bloodline. So all of these armies converge on the front lawn of Erebor for…wait for it…the battle of the five armies.

Six movies deep into this franchise and I can safely say THE BATTLE OF THE FIVE ARMIES is my least favorite of the bunch. I was so burned out on Middle Earth by the time this movie came around that I refused to see it in the theater. It's the only Peter Jackson/Tolkien movie that I never saw in the theater. I didn't bother watching it until the extended editions were released. In a movie that already feels like 90% filler, I can only imagine what had been added after the theatrical release. Sadly, most of this movie is utterly forgettable. The visual effects are impressive and the 45 minute final battle sequence certainly looks good, but did we need any of this? I don't think so. And, come on, 45 minutes is just too much. That's 45 minutes of CGI swarms of dwarfs, elves, orcs, and men hacking and slashing at each other and the occasional diversion to see what our heroes are doing so the story can keep pushing on. This means that every so often we'll break way so we can see…I don't know…Legolas (Orlando Bloom) hanging upside down from a giant bat monster while swinging his arms wildly to slice and dice a bunch of cartoon monsters that aren't really there. If I sound biased against this movie, it's because I believe its existence to be completely unnecessary and the whole exercise of creating it a gratuitous waste of time for Jackson and his crew. Tolkien's tale could've been handled in two better-paced films. I've been against the heavy use of CGI in these movies since AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY was released and this film just shoves it in my face with unmercifully long sequences of those same hated CG effects bouncing off each other. Would it have killed them to use some of those amazing practical costume/makeup effects for orcs in the foreground to give it an added sense of realism?

THE BATTLE OF THE FIVE ARMIES is only really interesting for the first act and the final act. Everything in the middle could've been trimmed generously. Unfortunately, when the big tragic moments begin to happen in the final act of the battle, I'm so worn out from the battle itself that they hold no weight. By that point, I'm just wishing we could skip to the end. THE BATTLE OF THE FIVE ARMIES isn't a horrible film but I can't imagine it rising to the top and becoming anyone's favorite Jackson/Tolkien movie. It's got some nice stuff in there. Martin Freeman is still perfect for the role of Bilbo, even if he has nothing to do here. I loved the addition of Billy Connolly to the cast as Thorin's cousin Dain and I loved his behind-the-scenes interviews even more, where he admits that he never cared for Tolkien's work and freely mocked anyone who did. Smaug is still awesome for what little time we're given with him, and Jackson even found a way to shoehorn Cate Blanchett, Hugo Weaving, and Christopher Lee into the series one last time. If I remember the novel correctly, Tolkien spares us the full details of the battle, choosing to knock Bilbo out when the action starts and filling him in later. In my ideal cut of Jackson's HOBBIT series, we'd get the same treatment. Bilbo is knocked unconscious and the movie would fade out; we fade in, the battle is over, the surviving characters fill us in on what happened in the form of a flashback montage. Keeps the movie a pleasant length and spares us from battle fatigue. In retrospect, I still enjoy Jackson's HOBBIT movies. The first one is enjoyable enough and was actually pretty solid. This third one though…ouch. An epic six movie series and it ends with a shrug. That's the real disappointment.

I really enjoyed the first two. I don't buy into the criticism that a 300 page book couldn't be made into a full blown trilogy. That said, I found the last episode way too full of battle scenes and gratuitous violence, big armies banging into each other, terrible orcs riding wolves, and the ultimate confrontation. In the process, all the charm that had been built up in the first two movies seemed to be dropped for a bunch of special effects. It starts well with the appearance of Smaug who fulfills his promise of destroying the town. But after that its a hodge-podge of romance and revenge and ultimately death. As this one ended, I literally felt, "Oh, is that the end?" Having read "The Hobbit" a couple of times, I knew what was going to happen, but it didn't quite work the way I thought it would. There was just something empty. Don't get me wrong, I could revel in the effort, but I can't say that this will stay with me for a long time.

So I went to The Hobbit marathon. Yes, my fangirling has reached the level where I'm willing to sit in a theater for nine hours straight.

First of all, seeing the first two movies on the big screen again (and for the last time) was a wonderful experience. Seeing all three on the big screen in one night? Very cool. And getting to watch the character transformations and story lines in a row, fantastic. The effects, casting, acting, setting, action... everything was good.

Martin Freeman should win some major awards for his acting... actually everyone should. They're all incredible. I must say, I cried for most of the last fifteen or so minutes. If you've read the book etc., you know why. If not, please go so you can cry too.

The action and battle scenes are captivating, intense, and extremely fun to watch. We get more info about Sauron, which makes me very happy. We also get more Legolas and Tauriel, and let's be honest, who doesn't want more Elvish epicness?

There were a few moments I could have done without, and a few moments where the CGI seemed off, but other than that, I honestly couldn't ask for a better movie. I feel like braiding my hair and learning to wield a sword now.

People complain about these movies so much, but honestly, this is as good as it gets when it comes to book adaptations.

9/10

Once again, thank you Peter Jackson. Agorel vae. Galu.

What a difference an Extended Edition makes. For the first part we got some jolly embellishment. For The Desolation of Smaug we got bags more depth and character. For The Battle of the Five Armies, it may - I hope - be transformative. Because right now this feels like An Unfinished Journey.

It's as if, after all the complaints about splitting a pamphlet of a novel into three parts, Peter Jackson is playing a joke on us: This is what you get when you ask for Middle-earth-lite. Characters we've come to love or loathe arc into nothing; others (e.g. Beorn and Radagast) are given literally seconds of screen time; and for the first time in this prequel trilogy, a whole chapter (The Return Journey) is pretty much elided entirely.

I'd like to be clear on my admiration for what Peter Jackson has done with The Hobbit so far. For all The Lord of the Rings' mythic grandeur and complex world-building, there's a warm geniality and brisk impetus to these lovingly crafted films. And those qualities are married to a thematic depth missing from its bedtime story source. Home and borders are themes that have run through this trilogy, from Bilbo's (Martin Freeman) heartfelt declaration of solidarity at the end of An Unexpected Journey, to Kili's (Aidan Turner) fevered speech to Tauriel (Evangeline Lilly) as she heals his wounds in Desolation, when they realise reconciliation is possible. Heck, I even like the addition of Tauriel - though her unsatisfying conclusion is perhaps typical of a final chapter that too often fails to tie up its loose ends.

The movie kicks off from precisely where the second ended, with the dread dragon Smaug (Benedict Cumberbatch) descending upon Laketown. The citizens flee but nothing can stop the cataclysm - until a certain someone finds an ingenious way to pierce the beast. Then there's nemesis #2: Sauron (also Cumberbatch). We get to see some familiar faces face-off with this faceless monstrosity.

The story then enters its most intriguing phase: a kind of psychodrama involving Thorin (Richard Armitage) and his sickening relationship with gold and power. It's the one time we really glimpse that signature Jackson oddness, in a wonderful hallucinatory sequence where Thorin imagines he's sinking in a lake of gold.

The narrative follows the book fairly closely. This was, after all, the stage of the story where Professor Tolkien finally foregrounded politics and ethics and the machinations of characters ahead of adventure. The film is at its most successful in the quieter moments, as Thranduil (a subtle Lee Pace) ponders the duty of the elves; as Bard (a brooding Luke Evans) comes to the gate of the mountain to plead for peace; and as Thorin struggles with his "dragon-sickness" (i.e. greed), while Bilbo wrestles with the dilemma of what to do with a certain stolen gemstone.

Thorin was presented at first as this trilogy's Aragorn. But over time we've learned of the dangerous pride that ruined his grandfather. Thorin's hubris and arrogance is in stark contrast to Bilbo's very relatable and achievable traits of decency and humility. The gulf between them is intriguing and wisely plundered for drama. Armitage and Bilbo provide the best performances of the film - mostly internal; mostly in the eyes - and their farewell is one of the more moving moments in a trilogy that has largely prioritised humour over pathos.

The battle itself is undoubtedly impressive - great roaring hordes punctuated with spectacular giants - but in a sense it compounds the problem of the relatively truncated runtime. What was already the shortest Middle-earth film is rendered artificially even shorter by the fact that there's 45 minutes of virtually wordless fighting. By now we should all be braced for Super Legolas and his physics-defying fighting style. That reaches new heights here; as he sprints up a crumbling bridge like he's on the wrong escalator, it's like some sort of visual satire on the weightlessness of CGI.

With its last bastion and swarming armies, the titular battle resembles The Return of the King's Pelennor finale - yet that movie took breath between its showdowns. Galadriel vs. Sauron; Legolas vs. Bolg; Thorin vs. Azog... it's like we're watching someone finish off a video game but we're powerless to stop them skipping the tension- or character-building cutscenes. Moreover, the dubious editing decisions create some strange and jolting juxtapositions and tonal lurches, and negate the sense of time passing or of great distances being crossed.

The result is a film that really earns its status of "theatrical cut", insofar as it resembles many a boisterous blockbuster. This is fairly damning criticism for a Middle-earth movie, usually so luxurious and layered in its sense of a unique world. There's plenty of meat here - but where are the bones that hold it all together? 11 months away, perhaps.

The Battle of the Five Armies title is a great exaggeration of what an army entails. The movie is about more or less a skirmish with some rather imaginative weaponry. The plot goes sideways and after two three hours long previous films we get a two hours and a half mess that is half completely over the top battle scenes and the other half people talking out of their asses. It is pure chaos, where orcs are either mighty unbeatable beasts bred for war or cardboard armor wearing morons easily defeated by fishermen's wives and children, as the action demands. Things start to remind of Pirates of the Caribbean, and not only because it's the same actor doing kind of the same stuff.

There is even a prolonged ending with Bilbo Baggings returning to the Shire, almost as if wanting to undo the good idea in the Lord of the Rings movies in which they removed the boring book ending with Saruman taking refuge in the Shire, and that portrays hobbits as petty bureaucratic creatures, rather than kind and resilient and courageous as declared everywhere else in the films. If I enjoyed the first two movies and wanted to see how it will all end, the third was a ridiculous failure, trying to do too much with too little: making a country brawl look like an epic battle, keeping the lighter more children oriented tone while killing characters and trying to express deeper heroic emotions, trying to somehow raise on the same level three organized military groups and a bunch of fishermen and animals and tying up lose ends that were there only to make this a trilogy rather than a pair of decent movies.

It is now when all the jokes about the eagles made in good fun in the first two movies (and in Lord of the Rings as well) turn smirky, when the only logic to the plot and action seems to be the panic of production companies trying to achieve their financial goals rather than tell a good story. It is here where the disappointment that everyone talks about when referring to The Hobbit movies raises its ugly head and grows on the small mistakes of the previous two movies. So in order to enjoy the trilogy, one must somehow detach themselves from the ending and see it as an imperfect finish to an otherwise fun movie, maybe imagine their own.