The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies
Directed by: Peter Jackson
Written by: Fran Walsh & Philippa Boyens & Peter Jackson & Guillermo del Toro - Based on the novel "The Hobbit" by J.R.R. Tolkien
Starring: Ian McKellen, Martin Freeman, Richard Armitage, Evangeline Lilly, Lee Pace, Luke Evans, Benedict Cumberbatch, Ken Stott, James Nesbitt, Billy Connolly, Aidan Turner, Dean O'Gorman, Graham McTavish, Stephen Fry, Ryan Gage, Mikael Persbrandt, Sylvestor McCoy, Peter Hambleton, John Callen, Mark Hadlow, Jed Brophy, William Kircher, Stephen Hunter, Adam Brown, John Bell, Manu Bennett, John Tui, Cate Blanchett, Ian Holm, Christopher Lee, Hugo Weaving, Orlando Bloom
Adventure/Fantasy - 144 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 15 Dec 2014
Written by: Fran Walsh & Philippa Boyens & Peter Jackson & Guillermo del Toro - Based on the novel "The Hobbit" by J.R.R. Tolkien
Starring: Ian McKellen, Martin Freeman, Richard Armitage, Evangeline Lilly, Lee Pace, Luke Evans, Benedict Cumberbatch, Ken Stott, James Nesbitt, Billy Connolly, Aidan Turner, Dean O'Gorman, Graham McTavish, Stephen Fry, Ryan Gage, Mikael Persbrandt, Sylvestor McCoy, Peter Hambleton, John Callen, Mark Hadlow, Jed Brophy, William Kircher, Stephen Hunter, Adam Brown, John Bell, Manu Bennett, John Tui, Cate Blanchett, Ian Holm, Christopher Lee, Hugo Weaving, Orlando Bloom
Adventure/Fantasy - 144 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 15 Dec 2014
The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies serves a dual role as both a trilogy bookend and a transition to the earlier Lord of the Rings films. Tucked into the battlefield’s physical and emotional carnage are more than a few winks to the future. Some years down the road, audiences may begin their Middle Earth education chronologically and watch the Hobbit movies first before venturing into the superior Lord of the Rings realm. They will view the slight nudges and elbows as foreshadowing instead of inside jokes as today’s viewers perceive them. Following in George Lucas’s footsteps and attaching an appetizer to his main dish, Peter Jackson wraps up most of the floating storylines in one way or another, usually through bloodshed, and the end result is a sigh and a shrug. This is not the best film of the trilogy, that winner is 2013’s The Desolation of Smaug, but it fills its role. Five armies converge in standard hack ‘em up/slash ‘em up fare and Jackson serves the audience precisely what the title tells them what is on the menu and nothing more. I appreciate the journey, but I am glad it is over.
The thrill is gone. We veteran witnesses of dozens of skirmishes between humans, elves, dwarves, orcs, and even dragons truly have seen it all before. The dragon Smaug is impressive to watch swoop and swirl and set things on fire yet the awesomeness is a year old. The unlikely coincidence of five different armies arriving on the same battlefield all within 30 minutes of one another is a plot hole I am willing to overlook, but the smashing, throttling, and bludgeoning bass of the enveloping meleé is on the intriguing edge of ho-hum. I was more than happy to watch the arrows fly and the hammers crash again, I will always be in the theater to see that, but I care less than before.
The thrill is gone. We veteran witnesses of dozens of skirmishes between humans, elves, dwarves, orcs, and even dragons truly have seen it all before. The dragon Smaug is impressive to watch swoop and swirl and set things on fire yet the awesomeness is a year old. The unlikely coincidence of five different armies arriving on the same battlefield all within 30 minutes of one another is a plot hole I am willing to overlook, but the smashing, throttling, and bludgeoning bass of the enveloping meleé is on the intriguing edge of ho-hum. I was more than happy to watch the arrows fly and the hammers crash again, I will always be in the theater to see that, but I care less than before.
Since Bilbo (Martin Freeman, 2013’s The World’s End) and the dwarf company, led by Dwarf Prince Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitage, 2014’s Into the Storm), have retaken The Lonely Mountain of Erebor, the journey is over. Instead of walking, running, jumping, and hiding, we watch Thorin dive headfirst into a nervous breakdown of dragon fever, the greed and fear of losing his Nouveau riche loot. Remember at the end of The Return of the King when Frodo lost his mind about the ring and Sam and Gollum had to kick his ass? Thorin succumbs to the same madness but there is no one in the group big enough to smack him out of it.
An elf army, another dwarf army, and a ragtag bunch of humans who could only refer to themselves as an army in their wildest dreams all show up on Thorin’s front porch like long lost relatives at a will reading but Thorin is having none of it. He and his plucky dwarf pals, along with Bilbo who did most of the heavy lifting, evicted Smaug so Thorin is ready to confront any and all unwanted solicitors. Thorin’s psychological madness is not the most engrossing situation to plod through. A couple orc armies are harrumphing toward Erebor and folks need to start getting on the same page as to who is going to start killing whom.
As always, the behind the scenes work to create the myriad creatures, the exotic locales, and the intense fighting choreography, both in broad-scope slaughter and one-on-one acrobatic butchery, are top notch. The primary orc villains are computer-generated based on motion capture, the dwarf army led by Dain Ironfoot (Billy Connolly) are boxy squares riding on wild boars, and the elves, led by the icy Thranduil (Lee Pace, 2014’s Guardians of the Galaxy) atop his gigantic elk moose, are stoic carbon copies of one another. The set designers have their work cut out for them since Smaug takes his rage out on poor Lake-town, which endures his fiery wrath. The settings surrounding the battlefield, the village of Dale and the dwarf Ravenhill outpost are what we expect from folks who study thousands of drawings and scour Tolkien’s appendices to create a realistic vision. Ravenhill is spectacular as a frozen and snow-capped area providing a unique setting for the more intimate fight scenes between the central protagonists.
Appropriately concluding with the original song “The Last Goodbye”, written and performed by Billy Boyd, Peregrin Took from The Lord of the Rings, the song is an effective send off for the millions of fans who followed Peter Jackson for the past 13 years and six films. This review spears the final installment on a few fronts, yet it remains a Jackson Middle Earth film; therefore, a master creation from a brilliant director even though the story gets lapped by the production. It has been a long and winding road for weary Lord of the Rings and Hobbit followers; you’ve earned a rest.
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