After the many decades of mourning for their lost fortune and homeland, the exiled king Thorin Oakenshield and his merry band have finally ousted the dragon Smaug and reclaimed what is their birthright, and for more importantly have swept aside the vast set up of two previous films to give way for director Peter Jackson the canvas he needs to make with the staby stab for his last outing in Middle-earth. While “The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies” delivers on that promise and then some mind you with a series of gargantuan action beats that mount tension on top of tension and yet rarely enforce battle fatigue on the audience.
However, while the Battle itself more than lives up to the hype it doesn’t offer much for subtle character work and the emotional appeals of Jackson’s original Tolkien trilogy, which have now been replaced by heavy-handed manipulation and a continued confusion of focus as he tries to decide who in fact his main character is in this prequel trilogy. Is it the taciturn, gold-obsessed dwarf Thorin (Armitage) or the surprisingly cunning, homebody hobbit Bilbo (Freeman). That confusion alone wreaks havoc on the pace as well, as the film speeds through much of its first half, and then slows precipitously as it nears the end, as if fearing to be over once and for all. Still, for what few problems “Battle” has – many of them legacy issues carried over from the decision to stretch the narrative into a unnecessary trilogy – Jackson’s keen sense for action set pieces and adrenaline ensure that the series (both “The Hobbit” and the Middle-earth films as a whole) go out on a high note, if not a perfectly pitched one.
And those action set pieces pick up right from where the previous film left off, as Smaug (Cumberbatch), having been ejected from the Lonely Mountain by the prodigal dwarves, lays waste to all the poor townsfolk lake town, and dangling plot threads in his path in a microcosm of all that is right and wrong in Jackson’s epic.
The director and his talented team of actors, stuntmen and effects technicians’ pay-off setup after setup. The main problem however is that when they do this, they are doing it without the always given consideration to how that will affect the flow of the entire movie. Like the teaser for a long-awaited season finale, Smaug meets his fate above Lake-town before the film’s even subtitle comes up and while the moment which has been built up the most across the three films has all the sturm and gravitas it needs, it also leaves us with two hours of film before it which almost by definition cannot match that opening. It was unnecessary move on Jackson’s part to cliffhanger us on the last movie, only to have that resolution be resolved in literally the first 15 minutes of the next movie. It would have been like if in two towers they ended it right when they retreat to the back of helms deep, only to then play the final 15 minutes of the battle in Return of The King when Gandalf shows up with the reinforcements. It was totally unnecessary and begs the question why bother calling the last movie “The Desolation Of Smaug” when the desolation doesn’t even take place until the next movie? (See where I’m coming from?)
With that the mutability of focus continues to plague this series as our theoretical point-of-view character Bilbo spends much of the climax with Smaug, and the film itself, is relegated to the sidelines, as a casualty of the choice to expand the story into a more large-scale ensemble. Which isn’t to say the little hobbit has nothing to do with “The Hobbit”: when Smaug’s smoke clears and every Elf and his look alike cousin realizes there is a big fuckin mountain nearby filled with a lot of gold and no dragon. The interracial conflicts between men and elves and dwarves, which has always lingered in the background of the series come to the full fore here, as Freeman proves why he was the right choice for the character, weaving between the opposing factions, trying to play peacemaker between desperate Bard (Evans), proud Thranduil (Pace) and paranoid Thorin.
It’s also here where Armitage proves his mettle as Thorin succumbs to his gold lust, which destroyed his forefathers. The characters’ inherent haughtiness makes it difficult for the tragic elements Jackson seems to be going for to really come across – he hasn’t been that likable enough in the previous films for the audiences to be fully invested in his downfall – but the two actors almost make it work anyway. When Thorin confides in Bilbo that he believes one of his cohorts has stolen the Arkenstone, the symbol of his authority as King, it makes his discovery that it is Bilbo himself who has done so heartbreaking enough to create a true emotional connection with the character.
It would be even more successful if Jackson didn’t feel the need to put his thumb on the scale and make sure the audience gets exactly when he’s going for that emotional moment and what it is. It’s not enough to just have Thorin shut the gates on the needy townsfolk and refuse to give them a penny of his hoard after he already promised he would, he then begins repeating not just the exact words of Smaug in relation to his gold but with Smaug’s voice laid over his own; not once, but several times. And because this is a Peter Jackson film, it goes without saying every major dramatic moment – particularly during the 50 minute battle itself – is done in slow-motion with mournful music played over top of it. It’s as if he found the climax of “Fellowship of the Ring” so satisfying he has made it his template for action films ever since.
These are not issues specific to only a few couple of the characters, either. Despite having nearly eight hours (when you add in all them movies) to play with, most of the supporting characters the Dwarves imp articular. They remain generally undisturbed by Jackson (and co-writers Fran Walsh and Phillipa Boyens, working from earlier drafts with Guillermo del Toro) who prefer to focus their efforts on Thorin’s descent into overall madness and the vastly boring star-crossed romance plot of dwarf-warrior Kili and elf-maid Tauriel (Lilly), in order to lay the most tragic possible outcome for the battle itself to fertilize with pure sorrow for when certain characters bite the axe. Living up to its name, the actual Battle of the Five Armies encompasses the bulk of the film and once it begins there is no room for much else, which is probably for the best as generally that is what Jackson and company have been best at during their second trip down Tolkien lane.
Jackson can’t quite keep the pace up and as with his previous Middle-earth conclusion, events slow to a major crawl once the battles have burned themselves out, leaving Bilbo the last man – er, hobbit – standing and the filmmakers with little choice but to try and make the film about him again after several hours of pursuing other characters. The result is a conclusion, which for all its bombast loses the cohesion a grand finale like this requires. Taken on its own, however, “The Battle of the Five Armies” can be summed up with a phrase we can apply to the entire trilogy: good enough.
While this no where near a tragedy like other past directors going to back to a trilogy that made them famous to do a prequel trilogy only to have it blow up in their un merciless face……….looking at you George Lucas. The hobbit trilogy still has merit an you can still see that Jackson still cares deeply for these an wanted to end this series on as high of note as he can. I will say this though about one character. Even at 92 years old Christopher Lee can still be a bad ass. His scene in this alone is worth at least one viewing.
7.5/10
