The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

The Battle of the Five Armies title is a great exaggeration of what an army entails. The movie is about more or less a skirmish with some rather imaginative weaponry. The plot goes sideways and after two three hours long previous films we get a two hours and a half mess that is half completely over the top battle scenes and the other half people talking out of their asses. It is pure chaos, where orcs are either mighty unbeatable beasts bred for war or cardboard armor wearing morons easily defeated by fishermen's wives and children, as the action demands. Things start to remind of Pirates of the Caribbean, and not only because it's the same actor doing kind of the same stuff.

There is even a prolonged ending with Bilbo Baggings returning to the Shire, almost as if wanting to undo the good idea in the Lord of the Rings movies in which they removed the boring book ending with Saruman taking refuge in the Shire, and that portrays hobbits as petty bureaucratic creatures, rather than kind and resilient and courageous as declared everywhere else in the films. If I enjoyed the first two movies and wanted to see how it will all end, the third was a ridiculous failure, trying to do too much with too little: making a country brawl look like an epic battle, keeping the lighter more children oriented tone while killing characters and trying to express deeper heroic emotions, trying to somehow raise on the same level three organized military groups and a bunch of fishermen and animals and tying up lose ends that were there only to make this a trilogy rather than a pair of decent movies.

It is now when all the jokes about the eagles made in good fun in the first two movies (and in Lord of the Rings as well) turn smirky, when the only logic to the plot and action seems to be the panic of production companies trying to achieve their financial goals rather than tell a good story. It is here where the disappointment that everyone talks about when referring to The Hobbit movies raises its ugly head and grows on the small mistakes of the previous two movies. So in order to enjoy the trilogy, one must somehow detach themselves from the ending and see it as an imperfect finish to an otherwise fun movie, maybe imagine their own.

I should have loved this film. One of the aspects I love most about Return of the King, my favourite of Jackson's adaptations and one of my favourite films of all time, is the sprawling, mass fantasy battle scenes and The Battle of Five Armies is pretty much one elongated battle scene. However, there's something that's not quite right.

It's not the lack of emotion, characterization or plot. Indeed, there are plenty of those, there is just something I just can't put my finger on that stops the film from being truly epic. Perhaps it is because, for me at least, this film will always live in King's shadow but, really, where I think the film falls down, is that the battles simply aren't done well enough. The context is not explained very well, the actual engagements not that exciting too much repetition and, most crucially, too much cutting away from one place to another. This cutting worked fine, well, even, in Two Towers between the crucible of Helm's Deep and the quiet conversation of the Entmoot, but, here, there are just too many places that the actions flits between. I appreciate this is a battle of five armies, and that there are plenty of characters, but, sadly, the action did seem to be all over the place. And the repetition I mentioned earlier: a huge portion of the film seemed to be entirely composed of either someone running to warn others, a main character leading the charge into battle, and several one-on-one battles. The latter may be entertaining, sure, but there is a line which is stepped over in this film.

The ending, too, seemed like it was rushed by the filmmakers, especially when we consider that we don't actually find out what happens to the Arkenstone in the end. Many people criticised Return of the King's dragged out ending, but that was full of emotion and was a fitting, yet sad, farewell. Here, where not only does Bilbo say farewell to Gandalf and the Dwarfs, but where we say an almost certain farewell to Middle Earth, the end is far too brief and unlikely to instil emotion. Though, it is, to be fair, nicely linked into Fellowship.

Ultimately though, the film has plenty of positives. Despite being full of battle sequences, Jackson fits in plenty of emotional scenes and develops many of the characters fantastically. In particular, Armitage's Thorin is different and darker, yet changes a great deal throughout the film - all in all, a fantastic performance. There's plenty of typical Jackson humour, some brilliant cameos and some great nods to the Lord of the Rings films and some elements of the film's production, which die-hard fans will no doubt pick up on with a smile. It's also important to realise that, whilst it's easy to criticise the long battle sequences, they are entertaining, and keep the pace of the film up throughout.

So, whilst it is easy to concentrate on the negatives and, in particular, the lack of a Grey Havens-esque adieu to Middle Earth, The Battle of Five Armies is still a great film and a fitting end to what has been a true achievement: a series of beautiful film adaptations that many will be sad to see end.

• Ed

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies is the weakest of all Peter Jackson's Tolkien adaptations. Even though this is the shortest of the Middle-earth movies, the story drags on as if it were the longest. But I guess that's what you get when you stretch out one book into three movies. In addition, the battle scenes are so computer generated that they look like in-game cinematics. It's a shame that this film series had to end on this note.

I really enjoyed the first two. I don't buy into the criticism that a 300 page book couldn't be made into a full blown trilogy. That said, I found the last episode way too full of battle scenes and gratuitous violence, big armies banging into each other, terrible orcs riding wolves, and the ultimate confrontation. In the process, all the charm that had been built up in the first two movies seemed to be dropped for a bunch of special effects. It starts well with the appearance of Smaug who fulfills his promise of destroying the town. But after that its a hodge-podge of romance and revenge and ultimately death. As this one ended, I literally felt, "Oh, is that the end?" Having read "The Hobbit" a couple of times, I knew what was going to happen, but it didn't quite work the way I thought it would. There was just something empty. Don't get me wrong, I could revel in the effort, but I can't say that this will stay with me for a long time.

Did Peter Jackson really just conclude his second Middle Earth trilogy? His take on J.R.R. Tolkein's "The Lord of the Rings" was a completely exhausting adventure that in many ways feels like seven films, not three, while "The Hobbit" trilogy feels exactly like it is on paper: one straightforward adventure broken into three parts. "The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies" proves a fitting, exciting conclusion to this particular trilogy, but compared to the conclusion of "The Lord of the Rings," quite frankly and pun intended – it gets dwarfed.

As with "The Unexpected Journey" and "The Desolation of Smaug," "The Battle of the Five Armies" is another beautiful achievement in fantasy filmmaking, with stunning production value and an outstanding director in Jackson. It is creative, humorous, action-packed, brimming with talent and gravitas and so many of the things that made "The Lord of the Rings" the achievement it was. So why was this trilogy less acclaimed and somewhat anti-climactic? Part of this undoubtedly has to do with novelty. We've been to Middle Earth before, we've seen the makeup and the elaborate sets, we know how Jackson navigates a battle sequence. Although "The Hobbit" has new locales and new characters and was the first film series screened with a higher frame rate, it's not as groundbreaking an achievement. Also, that accomplishment set the bar high for "The Hobbit" given how many people have returned from "Lord of the Rings" on camera and off.

Yet the real culprit is story. "The Hobbit" is a children's book, so splitting it into three parts is merely dragging out a streamlined plot of "company seeks treasure and justice, company faces challenges along the way culminating in a mighty dragon, company overcomes odds." The added subplots put more meat on the bones of the three films, especially "Desolation," but did not necessarily add complexity or maturity to it.

"Five Armies" at least does not waste any time. The first act is entirely buildup to the titular battle with plenty of suspense as sides try to negotiate in order to prevent an unnecessary war when a much greater evil is growing in Middle Earth. After Smaug torches Lake-town, Thranduil (Lee Pace) and the Wood-elves march upon Erebor, where Thorin (Richard Armitage) has reclaimed his rightful throne. Thorin, however, is corrupted by his greed, and rather than help the displaced people of Lake-town, grows restless because his treasure's focal point, the Arkenstone, has yet to be found. Bilbo (Martin Freeman), who has been hiding the Arkenstone, sees Thorin's madness could cause a senseless war, which of course it does, only the battle takes a different shape when Azog the Defiler and his orc army arrives.

So corruption and selfishness become dominant themes of the film until the final battle, which doesn't disappoint in scale, entertainment, or visual effects. What it doesn't do, however, is command a vested interest from the audience. And when the larger battle halts entirely in order to follow the main characters, it hurts the larger overall narrative, or rather, calls attention to the fact that there really isn't one at this point in the story other than "kill the orcs." Yes, the fate of Middle Earth is at stake, but we already know how things will ultimately play out.

Someone who has never seen the films watching all six in order could be something special, though. "Five Armies" does make "The Hobbit" trilogy a rather strong bridge to "Lord of the Rings," even in its last shot. In a way, Jackson acknowledges that that tale is the bigger story, the one that matters most. The parting message is kind of like "we hope you enjoyed these three fun movies, but 'The Lord of the Rings,' that's where it's really at." As moviegoers who witnessed "Lord of the Rings," this doesn't quite work for us, because we wanted to go back to Middle Earth for something more, to build on the experience of "Lord of the Rings." "The Hobbit," however, like any good prequel, is the foundation, not the next step, and because the story is so simplistic, it doesn't quite do enough for us on its own.

"The Hobbit" is a fun, small adventure filled with courage, danger, evil and love set in the world of "Lord of the Rings," and "Five Armies" is that big scene at the end of the story where everything comes to boil. That's the gist of it. The rest is Jackson and his extraordinary cast and crew bringing that elaborate world back to life for us to enjoy one more time.

~Steven C

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