The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies Blu-ray Review
"You've won the Mountain. Is that not enough?"
Reviewed by Kenneth Brown, March 16, 2015
I try not to think about
The Hobbit movies too hard these days. Especially
The Battle of the Five Armies. I've
spent the last three months doing everything I can to avoid thinking about director Peter Jackson's third
Hobbit and
sixth
Rings installment. The more I dwell on it, the more I dislike it. I stopped mulling it over when that dislike started
to take on a frightening intensity, and moved on with life.
Armies is fine, I suppose... in a dutifully but dully
entertaining sort of way. Granted, its flaws are far more apparent than previous
Hobbit entries, Jackson's love of
cartoonish hijinks is at an all time high, and everything from the plotting to the pacing to the hurried finale feel less and less
like a
Lord of the Rings prequel as the film trudges along. But it's hard to out and out hate a movie made with the
level of sheer, increasingly silly joy Jackson invests here, even as he teeters into self-parody and ramps the action up so high
that the whole of
The Hobbit saga nearly comes tumbling down.
When last we left dear Master Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman), Thorin (Richard Armitage) and his dwarven kin had entered
Erebor, only to inadvertently unleash the deadly dragon Smaug (Benedict Cumberbatch) on the nearby human settlement of
Laketown. Meanwhile, half a world away, Gandalf (Ian McKellan) had been captured by the Necromancer (also Cumberbatch),
who was revealed to be that ancient evil, Sauron. As
The Battle of the Five Armies lurches off the starting line,
Jackson makes all too quick work of both storylines; pitting Bard the Bowman (Luke Evans) and his last black arrow against
Smaug the Magnificent in a fight atop a burning Laketown tower, and assembling Galadriel (Cate Blanchett), Elrond (Hugo
Weaving) and Saruman (Christopher Lee) to Dol Guldur to rescue the Grey Wizard from the clutches of Sauron and the ghostly
Nazgûl.
The problem is both subplots are resolved so hastily that the film begins its first-act run on a bad ankle, stumbling into an
anticlimactic hitch from the get-go. It's clear Smaug should have been dealt with -- to completion -- by the end of the second
film. Not tacked onto the opening of the third as a notably truncated ten-minute vignette. Also clear: the Sauron fight Jackson
has been building towards since
An Unexpected Journey was (mostly) for nothing. Wrapped up with a poorly realized
light show and a shrug of the shoulders, it begs the question: why was the Necromancer presented as such a threat when his
defeat would be handed to our heroes so easily? (Although perhaps more pressing a question is this: was the Sauron
showdown left on the shelf until the last minute? The Weta Workshop visual effects are uncharacteristically weak, looking like
the product of a throwback '80s fantasy rather than a film with a multi-million dollar budget.)
With Smaug and the Necromancer out of the way (among other developments, like Bard's semi-reluctant rise to leader of
men), it's on to the protracted second act of
The Battle of the Five Armies. Or rather, the remainder of what's
essentially a sprawling action scene spread across an hour and a half of screentime. The spectacle feels thin. Sort of stretched.
Like butter scraped over too much bread. And the final word in what was once a heated debate -- should
The Hobbit
have been split into three films? -- is now practically certain. No. Jackson should have stuck with a lean, mean two films,
shaving the fat, ditching the filler, and sticking with the core of everything that makes J.R.R. Tolkien's original book the breezy,
delightful adventure it is. Interestingly, Jackson visibly suffers the consequences of his decision, finding himself in a
predicament he's never encountered on a
Rings project. There's very little ground left to cover in
The Battle of the
Five Armies and plenty of time to cover it, making it the most bloated film in
The Hobbit trilogy despite having
the shortest runtime of any entry in the six-movie
Rings saga.
The story doesn't unfold, it explodes. Thorin continues to spiral into madness, and the dwarves prepare for war while
contemplating a mutiny of sorts. Bilbo is further relegated to the proverbial bench, with almost nothing of significance to do
beyond delivering the Arkenstone to Lee Pace's Thranduil. Legolas (Orlando Bloom) finally makes his full transformation into a
videogame protagonist, controlling a troll by driving a sword into its head and steering it by way of its brainy bits, running up
falling rocks mid-swordfight, and performing other head-shaking feats of physics-defying godhood. Kili (Aidan Turner) and
Tauriel's (Evangeline Lilly) near-romance is milked for all its worth. Ryan Gage's Alfrid is in the mix for... erm, some reason,
Wormtonguing in Bard's ear. (And he pops up.
A lot.) Thranduil and Bard are eventually sidelined, without the
compelling closure to their arcs
The Desolation of Smaug seemed to promise. Plenty of alpha-male chest-puffing
consumes Thorin, Thranduil and guest dwarf Dáin (Billy Connolly, having a blast). Azog returns. The worms from
Tremors make a cameo. Some rousing but repetitive violence ensues, with a few inspired details cooked up in the
always attentive production lab. (The signal towers used by the orcs and goblin hordes to coordinate field movements are an
especially subtle but nice touch.) And the titular battle of the five armies shifts and evolves as expected, with largely CG
legions barreling headlong into opposing CG hordes.
There are several admittedly moving character beats, the majority of which prevent the film from leaping foolishly into heap
after heap of Big Dumb Fun. Freeman's scenes with Armitage and McKellan are among the film's best, Pace exudes authority
and fury with unnerving focus, the Company actors seize a number of sequences and declare them their own (Turner, Graham
McTavish, Ken Stott and Dean O'Gorman chief among them), and Lilly flexes her dramatic muscle, even as Tauriel remains one
of Jackson's more controversial additions to the story. The rest of the cast is terrific as well, no matter how questionable some
script and story choices might be, but the war is what you paid for, and the war is what Jackson delivers. The same could be
said of
The Return of the King I suppose, but its stakes were higher, sacrifices greater, villains more captivating,
heroes more magnetic, and its battles more grounded and invigorating.
Bottom line?
The Battle of the Five Armies is a decently engaging three-star amusement park ride, but be warned:
the more you scrutinize, the deeper you look, and the closer you examine all the moving parts, the more dissatisfied you're
likely to become. And it isn't long before that dissatisfaction breeds disappointment. Movie magic gives way to cheap tricks,
character drama is often minimalized, and too much heavy lifting is left to the always excellent cast, who aren't given much to
work with in Jackson, Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens' grunt-heavy screenplay. Just over the course of penning this review,
my trigger finger has been itching, tempting me to drop my movie score another half-point. So why so much contempt? The
trajectory of
The Hobbit films has been clear since the dwarves faced the Goblin King in
An Unexpected
Journey, as has Jackson's relative lack of real passion for Tolkien's text. With
The Lord of the Rings trilogy, every
effort was made to honor the books, barring several widely discussed changes the filmmakers' acknowledged countless times
as necessary evils. Jackson didn't have a burning desire to make
The Hobbit trilogy, though; signing on only after
Guillermo del Toro bowed out. That initial reluctance seeps into
The Battle of the Five Armies. It's not that Jackson
isn't passionate about the film he's made. He is, and his joy oozes out of each shot, scene and delirious clash of the Tolkien
titans. It's just that his passion isn't in the original story. He loved Tolkien's "Rings." He merely had a fondness for "The
Hobbit," and the difference becomes fairly obvious when comparing both trilogies.
The Battle of the Five Armies is more successful when viewed solely as a conclusion of Jackson's
Hobbit
trilogy. As the sixth and final piece in his
Rings saga, as a bridge between
The Hobbit and
The Lord of
the Rings films, or as an action drama, there are more serious problems that undermine the things Jackson is working to
accomplish. Perhaps some revelatory material has been saved for the November 2015 Extended Edition that will right
character-arc wrongs and add depth to the shallowness of all the spectacle. However, if that's the case, another issue presents
itself. At 144 minutes, there's room for additional material in the theatrical version of
The Battle of the Five Armies. If
the Extended Edition runtime parallels the theatrical runtimes of
An Unexpected Journey and
The Desolation of
Smaug, Jackson will be accused (perhaps rightfully so) of withholding scenes the film desperately needed, all to preserve
extra minutes for the EE cut. Could this be the last lingering consequence of dividing
The Hobbit into three filler-
riddled chapters? My Spidey Sense is tingling. Until we find out for sure, though, we're left with little choice but to hope for the
best and settle for the lesser of the three
Hobbit theatrical releases.
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