Review

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

Smaug destroying Laketown in Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies.
Smaug destroying Laketown in Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies.

The glaring issue for this entire Middle Earth saga is clarified in the first few minutes of this final installment. You recall the awe-inspiring Smaug, the fire-breathing, gold-adoring dragon whose presence enervated the first film, and dominated the second, ending as it did with an infuriated Smaug shucking off the Dwarves' puny attempts to kill him to go wreak horrible vengeance on the innocent enclave of Laketown, nearby? You recall the tremendous dramatic hook of the last parting image in that film: Poor Bilbo (Martin Freeman) looking helpless as the dragon begins its fiery assault over the lake, and wondering aloud what they had just done?

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Dwalin (Graham McTavish), Nori (Jed Brophy), Balin (Ken Stott), Oin (John Callen), Fili (Dean O’Gorman), Bifur (William Kircher), Kili (Aidan Turner), Ori (Adam Brown), Gloin (Peter Hambleton), Dori (Mark Hadlow), Bilbo (Martin Freeman) and Bombur (Stephen Hunter) are fierce little dudes in Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies.

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Gandalf the Grey (Ian McKellen) is still standing as Peter Jackson’s Middle Earth film saga comes to a close with The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies.

You recall all that? So, perfect. Just so you know, in Peter Jackson's conclusive film to the trilogy, that very dragon is dispatched even before the opening credits have finished. In other words, we spent a great deal of time hearing about Smaug in The Hobbit, and seeing him in action in The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, only to have him vanquished and done with almost as an after-thought in the final film.

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

79 Cast: Martin Freeman, Cate Blanchett, Luke Evans, Richard Armitage, Benedict Cumberbatch, Ian McKellen, Orlando Bloom, Lee Pace, Christopher Lee, Hugo Weaving

Director: Peter Jackson

Rating: PG-13

Running time: 144 minutes

While it is true I have to cop to not being the biggest fan of this series from the get-go, I think I can safely say now at its conclusion just what it is that felt lacking to me. Essentially, it took a single novel that might have made a spectacular three-hour film, and stretched it out over the course of three long installments -- at close to eight hours -- instead. It's as if you took a ladle of flavorful lentil soup and watered it down to the point where you're left with a bowl of dun-colored water.

Of course, Smaug's death does open the door to the rest of the plot, such as it is. With the great and terrifying dragon slain, and their town a smoldering wreck, the heroic Bard (Luke Evans) takes the remaining villagers and shuttles them to shelter at the now freed Lonely Mountain, of which the original pack of Dwarves, led by their king Thorin (Richard Armitage), suddenly find themselves in possession. However, Thorin has become stricken with "dragon sickness" by all the gold and treasure piled in the place, and refuses Bard access, insisting he'll go to war rather than give up any of the gold he once promised to Laketown in exchange for their help.

Adding to the fun, an Elvin army also arrives, led by the vainglorious Thrandull (Lee Pace, and his eyebrows), who come to claim some of their people's precious metals and jewelry, to which Thorin also scoffs. But wait, there's more: Unbeknownst to either of these parties, a massive Orc army, led by the hideous Azog (Manu Bennett, CGI'd beyond recognition), is also en route to the mountain, hoping to use its riches and its strategic location to go forward and conquer the North.

Those keeping track might have only counted four of the five armies promised in the title, but we'll leave the final group alone, only to say that they come led by the Zelig-like Gandalf the Grey (Ian McKellen). The vast majority of the relatively humane (by Jackson standards) running time is spent in service to the fierce pitched battle between these factions, first in massive group combat, but eventually, of course, to the final showdown between Thorin and Azog, who have a fair amount of bad blood between them to settle.

Certainly, there are attempts at a more complex sort of a storyline, most of which involve a host of romantic subplots, with various warriors and their desired significant others looking balefully into each other's eyes as Orc blood splatters all around them. There are also some minor pleasures at the film's penchant for allusions to the future and what will eventually become the events and people that made up the original Lord of the Rings trilogy (Orlando Bloom gets steady burn back in the long blond wig and ever-ready arrow quiver of Legolas, the character, it appears, that will define his career). But that's about all the film can offer in the ways of dramatic sweep.

I suppose there are things that could appeal to an audience beyond the rabid Middle Earthers in the crowd (whom I've already offended several times over, I fear). Jackson takes many of the lessons he learned about epic battle scenes in the Rings series and applies them with equal aplomb here.

There's a kind of frictional joy in watching the spectacle of the different fighting styles employed by the opposing armies all hammering away at each other -- Jackson's sweeping lens captures the stocky, symmetrical brute force of the Dwarvish soldiers, in direct contrast to the balletic, cat-like grace of the Elves; the desperation of the humans; and the blunt-force trauma of the Orcs, who nevertheless tend to get beheaded in bunches. Even if the battle still feels like a bit of an afterthought compared to the end-of-the-world stakes of the Rings trilogy, one can certainly appreciate the spectacular chaos Jackson meticulously captures. In similar vein, the final battle between Thorin and Azog is appropriately satisfying, even if more than a little drawn out.

Jackson also has one other significant ace in the hole: The exquisite landscape of his native New Zealand. If he had never brought anything else to the table, his idea to shoot the two trilogies all over the two islands of his home country was an absolute masterstroke, the stunning vistas and vibrant, otherworldly colors of the place creating the perfect backdrop to J.R.R. Tolkien's fine-tuned vision.

And by this time, I think it's safe to say you are either in the bag for these films or you're not; there's very little guesswork left. I shudder to think of the inevitable four- or five-hour director's cut special editions of the DVDs, stretching an already thin story to its absolute breaking point, but maybe for some people it will still suffice. If you're hungry enough, even the thinnest of gruels can be nourishment enough to survive.

MovieStyle on 12/19/2014

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