The decision by Peter Jackson to expand JRR Tolkien's slim, trim novel The Hobbit into three movies was met with derision, and for very good reason. They all but guaranteed an extensive amount of filler and more of this new fellowship walking through grassy plains than ever. The first film was a crashing bore, the second film a marked improvement, and now with The Battle of the Five Armies we are treated to the final chapter of the trilogy and the first to meet the high quality standards of The Lord of the Rings. While the series as a whole doesn't quite measure up, Jackson deserves credit for wrapping up this massive fantasy epic on an incredibly high note.
Easily the best of the trilogy, Battle of the Five Armies is exactly
what it promises to be: one mammoth war fought between every faction in Middle
Earth. Picking up right where the last film left off with Smaug (voiced by
Benedict Cumberbatch) setting Laketown ablaze, the heroic Bard the Bowman (Luke
Evans) races to find a way to ground the armored dragon. If there was too
much drag on the first two movies, 'Armies' is all gorgeously detailed action.
Would it have been cool to see what another director could do with this world
visually? Absolutely, but there's a comfort in the beautiful familiarity he
brings to Middle Earth, and his ability to choreograph multiple battle
sequences at a time is stunning.
While Laketown burns, what seems like a dozen other plots are playing out at
elsewhere. Gandalf (Ian McKellen) has discovered the dooming arrival of a
darker evil threatening the land; while Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitage),
Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman), and the company of dwarves are holed up in the
Lonely Mountain reclaiming their lost treasure. True character arcs are few but
Oakenshield gets the best one as he's torn between greed and leading his
people. Bilbo's arc was completed mostly in the second film as he became more
than just burglar, but he's important here as Oakenshield's conscience. With so
many characters wrapped in prosthetics and make-up it's easy to take the acting
for granted, but Armitage and Freeman are both excellent. Meanwhile, the other
dwarves remain mostly interchangeable and indistinguishable, with the exception
of Kili (Aidan Turner) who is memorable only for his romance with the elf,
Turiel (Evangeline Lilly). Even that is handled with efficiency and a little
bit of sweetness which shines through in the midst of the raging war
surrounding it.
And let's talk about that war because it encompasses almost 60% of the
movie, if not more. Jackson has never spared any expense in crafting his
special effects budget but he really outdid himself this time. Again
pushing the limits of CGI technology, every disgusting orc, mountain range, and
glittery elf looks exquisite. Tolkien himself would be in awe of what Jackson
has been able to accomplish. With so many characters and plot threads weaving
in and out of the fighting, there's also the need to connect with the Lord of
the Rings trilogy. While that connection is definitely forced on occasion, we
don't see a bunch of characters from the other films shoe-horned in where they
don't belong, a problem faced by predecessors. Running at only 2 hours and
about 20 minutes, this is the shortest and briskly-packed film of the bunch.
There's simply not a lot of standing around this time, and even if the final
battle stretches on a bit too long it never gets boring. The humor
doesn't always work, like with the aggravatingly duplicitous "Alfrid"
character, but it's a welcome presence in what is basically a fantastical war
movie. That we care so much about these characters and their connections
to one another speaks to the richness of Tolkien's vision but also Jackson's
ability to fully realize it.
Now that it's all said and done, The Hobbit will certainly go down as
inferior to The Lord of the Rings by comparison, but so what? They
should be taken as a complete whole, one that reaches incredible heights of
imagination and technical precision. Jackson will probably never do anything as
big as this again (although we've said that before!), but he's left a mark with
these films that can never be erased.
Rating: 4 out of 5
