Movie Review: THE HOBBIT: THE BATTLE OF THE FIVE ARMIES

I’ve wondered if Peter Jackson had decided to make The Hobbit into a film prior to Lord of the Rings, what would have been the result?  I’m thinking maybe  it’d be much less reliant on digital creations and would be more practical.  It’d likely be just one movie as the franchise would be untested, and I think it’d be a stronger, tighter story that way. Battle of the Five Armies is the shortest of the Hobbit films running about 135 minutes without credits, comparing to around 160 for An Unexpected Journey and 155 for Desolation of Smaug.  It may not seem like much of a difference, but 30 minutes is A LOT of time in Jackson’s world.  It’d be easy to edit down all three films into two, maybe one as a real bladder buster.  Alas, that’s not what happened, and it’s one thing to pipedream what could and should have been and quite another to just accept what exists.  I’m ready to accept it now that the end has arrived.

We resume the story from Desolation of Smaug‘s cliffhanger without any time wasted, burning down the village with the townsfolk helpless aside from Baird (Luke Evans).  Sadly Smaug is gone after the first 20 minutes, Benedict Cumberbatch’s creature was so impressive and such a highlight of the series.  What comprises the rest of the film is barely even three acts.  With the mountain of gold free from the dragon’s clutches, everyone in Middle Earth seems to want a piece.  This is where those five armies come in.  There are the 8 dwarves we’ve followed led by Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitage) who lay claim to the wealth, the surviving townspeople led by Baird and aided by Gandalf (Ian McKellen), the massive elf army led by Thranduil (Lee Pace), a surprise guest army, and the ork hoard that outnumbers all the others combined.  That’s my take at least, it could be argued that two or more of them are combined and that animals count as a separate entity.  It only takes about 45 minutes before they all clash that results in a huge siege that comprises the rest of the film.

There’s a lot of non-stop action that makes up for the lack thereof in Unexpected Journey.  Bilbo (Martin Freeman) takes a back seat for most of the film, only acting as a vital aid in getting Thorin’s mind right…and with that whole invisibility of the ring thing.  Meanwhile Tauriel (Evageline Lilly) and Legolas (Orlando Bloom) show up late to the party and aid Thorin, Fili (Dean O’Gorman) and Kili (Aidan Turner) in taking out the head of the orks.  There are some real stand out moments here with one-on-one battles that haven’t happened too often in the Middle Earth series.  Thorin’s battle with the lead ork (whose name escapes me) drags on a bit too long in terms of “wait, he’s not dead yet” moments.  It’s an editing thing, really.  The biggest problem with all of the Hobbit films has been editing.  It’s a stretch to fill out three films on one very small story so the pacing is far off from what it really should be.  Five Armies feels too empty as a result of this as it’s essentially one giant climax.  I won’t complain about a movie being exciting, but when viewed as a whole with the other two chapters Five Armies is just as non functional as Unexpected Journey.

Five Armies does it’s best to lead into Lord of the Rings, and the results are scattered.  The tone matches up perfectly for once, which is great.  However, many questions are left unanswered, most notably how much time separates the two series.  Legolas is sent on a journey to the North to find a certain ranger we know and love, but what exactly takes him so long is a mystery.  Tauriel is pretty much abandoned as we won’t see her or hear about her at all in the future trilogy.  Seeing as she was a character developed specifically for the Hobbit films it would have made a lot more sense to have her die a hero’s death than have her disappear into the ether — elves live for a LONG time.

Looking back at my reviews for the first two entries, I was dead on with the first and a bit too kind to the second, although Smaug remains the strongest of the three.  As a climactic, thrilling conclusion to the story Five Armies is solid and satisfying, but as a film itself has no structure and very little substance.  Watching it has inspired me to watch the Lord of the Rings trilogy again.  All three of them have structure, substance, and action; it’s a shame The Hobbit films couldn’t accomplish the same.  I’m happy Jackson can move on to more interesting material again, maybe that long awaited Tintin sequel or a throw back horror film to rediscover his roots.  Whatever it is, it better be one part and under two hours.