It has been two long years since we were first graced with the beginning of The Hobbit. That’s two years to wait, and wait for the shortest book in the line to finally finish. After two years since the release of the first Hobbit, the one we have finally been waiting for has arrived. Elves, Dwarves and Orcs, oh my! Throw in an angry dragon and you have some of biggest Lord of the Rings’ battles ever; not to mention an ageless Orlando Bloom delivering some epic kick-ass like only he can sling.
The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies is definitely the best of the trilogy. Of course, that may not be saying much overall. The first movie, An Unexpected Journey, felt like a song and dance flick that had me groaning worse than an hour at the opera. (Thank you again, Peter Jackson, for filling in all those pages of info I didn’t need on the heritage of the fourth rabbit in the reindeer line up.) The second film, The Desolation of Smaug, took nearly the entire movie to see a dragon breathe a breath of flame.
As The Battle clearly states, this is the film that rewards us for the previous 6-hours of what some would say meaningless set-up to the real action– unless you count playing water barrels with 12 dwarves fun.
The film starts right where the previous film lets off, so if you haven’t seen that get on it, with Bilbo (TV Fargo‘s Martin Freeman) and his motley crew of dwarves unleashing the dragon Smaug on the helpless humans of Lake-town. All coming down to the valiant bow skills of the Bard (Dracula Untold‘s Luke Evans) who heroically saves the city from Dragon slaughter with a single metal arrow propped William Tell style on his prodigy.
After the sun rises on the scorched city of Lake-town, Bard leads his survivors to the lonely mountain seeking sanctuary from the newly appointed Dwarf king, only to be confronted by the king of the wood elves (Ronan the Accuser a.k.a. Lee Pace) astride a giant moose leading a gold plated army of elves seeking lost elf heirlooms.
Unfortunately the dwarven king Thorin Oakenshield (Captain America‘s Richard Armitage), has went all Scrooge McDuck ala “Dragon Sickness” and isn’t willing to part with a single coin. If only there was a something that could unite this squabbling party? Thanks to a horde of drooling orcs, goblins, trolls — and rock worms straight out of Frank Herbert’s “Dune” — Peter gives us something to remedy that.
My biggest concern with The Hobbit movies in whole, even though I am a fan boy, has always been that they seem more like a video game and less like a retelling of a beloved childhood book. The original Lord of the Rings movies, brought the books to life with a mix of romanticism and epic spectacles. Truly explaining why Tolkien’s work have always been seen as grandfather to the “fantasy” genre. The final “Hobbit” film in the series is not that; but no dollar was spared on CGI making it worth every dollar you may spend on a 3-D movie ticket.
Like just about any video game out nowadays, you must always leave the air of reality behind. When an army of Dwarves or Orcs appears on the horizon, never expect battle tactics beyond what looks cool or what can appear far more menacing on screen. When warrior dwarves deploy an interlocking shield wall two dwarves high, always expect a vanguard of ninja golden elves to come flying over brandishing their very best crouching tiger hidden dragon skills. Or when an over CGI’d dwarven king rides in to battle atop his mighty war hog, always remember that dwarves never ride horses. True to form, even the best hack-and-slash can get tiring if you’ve done nothing more than button mash for the past hour and a half. Thankfully, Five Armies is also the shortest Hobbit movie, but due to lack of time spent on characters it’s also the least cerebral.
Past the added characters and confusing subplots tacked on to the original story, TBOTFA is weighted down and bloated on trying to accomplish too many stories with to little time– which, when you consider Peter Jackson has already used around 9-hours to tell his final fury footed opus, should blow your mind. For example, how are we to care about the added she-elf Tauriel (Ant-Man‘s Evangeline Lilly) and her Romeo and Juliet love affair with the dwarf rake Kili (Being Human‘s Aidan Turner) when it gets less than 90-seconds of screentime and also gets left half-hanging? Or, what about big bad guys that are harder to tell apart and over CGI’d by the names of Bolg and Azog? How are we ever to rally against these evil forces when you can barely tell them apart besides their paler skin?
It also takes a stretch of the imagination when you remember that this giant battle is really only a small counter skirmish in comparison to the larger picture of what’s at stake– even though it does its darnedest to overshadow Helm’s Deep. You do get a glimpse of the looping evil takeover when the combined forces of Saruman, Galadriel, and Elrond come to Gandolf’s (Magneto a.k.a. Ian McKellen) aid against the Necromancer king, even if it does comes off as a bad psychedelic trip when Sauron and his Nazgul are disposed off.
At the end, the saving grace is — and seemingly always has been — Bilbo Baggins. This pint-sized adventurer with a heart of gold has held together the last two films and continues to do so with this final installment. His heroic journey from meekest recluse to reluctant hero is the heart and soul of this saga.
WB’s The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies in theaters now.