After two movies totaling five-and-a-half-hours (over six hours for the extended versions) the end has finally arrived as not one, not two, not three, not even four armies will do battle in the so-called “defining chapter” of Peter Jackson‘s Hobbit series. This is The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies and if you don’t expect to wonder when the so-called fifth army will arrive to lend its steel to the bloodless carnage throughout the entire movie, guess again.
Dwarves, orcs, man, elves, goblin mercenaries and more orcs from the land of Gobbledeegoo come to do battle outside the gates of Erebor, lorded over by Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitage) and the Company of Dwarves, reclaiming what belonged to them from the dragon Smaug. This leaves Smaug none too please, causing him to redirect his anger and frustration at the people of Laketown before he’s eventually defeated by Bard (Luke Evans) in an event that should have happened at the end of the last film, but that would mean Battle of the Five Armies would have just one big battle, which the title suggests it is anyway, and — Oh who cares?
Meanwhile, Thorin gets dragon sickness (don’t ask me, Google it), becomes obsessed with finding the Arkenstone and as much as his fellow dwarves realize he’s gone crazy they still inexplicably stand by his side, but not Bilbo (Martin Freeman). No, Bilbo goes and tattles on him to Gandalf (Ian McKellen) and Thranduil (Lee Pace), the latter of which is all, “I hate dwarves, I want my jewels from Erabor. Derp!” while Bard also wants the portion of the gold Thorin promised the people of Laketown. Of course, Thorin is all, “You can’t have your jewels.” Bard is like, “You promised!” Thranduil is like, “Do you want wahhh-er?” Thorin is like, “You betcha!”
Meanwhile, orcs are converging on Erabor as Sauron is gaining power, Legolas (Orlando Bloom) and Tauriel (Evangeline Lilly) are flipping and spying on the orcs and battle is about to be waged until the (I can’t believe it comes to this again) Eagles save the day.
Now, with all of that said, Battle of the Five Armies is probably the most entertaining of what are essentially three awful Hobbit “movies”. Truthfully they should not be judged as individual movies (hence the reason I’ll no longer be providing grades for installments posing as movies), but as individual parts of an overall, seven hour and 54 minute movie (not including extended material).
Given that nearly eight hour running time, I’m having a hard time looking back on this project and figuring out just what exactly the story was, where it might have gone wrong, what was necessary, if anything, and if I ever cared one bit about anything that was going on. Maybe there is some good stuff here, but it’s all lost in a sea of meaningless asides over the course of the first 5.5 hours and a large portion of this third part, which is, thankfully, the shortest of the lot.
I walked into this movie uninterested and not caring as a result of the first two movies and I can’t say that point of view ever changed. It was all I could do to refrain from looking at my watch almost immediately. I actually made it 30 minutes in before my first glance, realizing even then it was too soon and would only be disheartened to learn how much was left.
“You went in wanting to hate it!” I can hear the Internet commenters yelling. No, I went in uninterested and I would have preferred to love it as a result of the time I was required to dedicate to it. I will at least give it credit for being a little more entertaining, largely because something is actually going on in pretty much every scene. Now it might not be something all that interesting as it’s pretty much just creatures snarling, banging swords and scowling, but at least it’s something and the fact it’s action-based helps, even though the action isn’t all that good.
Much of the action is between rivaling characters we either don’t know or don’t care about. An army of nameless elves battles alongside an army of nameless men of Laketown alongside an army of nameless dwarves led by Billy Connolly, all of which battling an army of nameless orcs and other creatures of Middle Earth. Jackson has to stop the action in order to propel the story along by finding the characters we actually recognize (even though I still can’t tell you the name of any of the dwarves other than Thorin) to at least pretend all of this is leading up to some kind of meaningful conclusion.
By the end, if you’re invested in or are loving these Hobbit films I think you’ll be satisfied with this final chapter and I guess that’s a good thing. As much as I don’t like it, I think I can at least recognize it as something fans of the franchise will enjoy, though I do hope those same fans can at least acknowledge the three Hobbit “films” are a far cry from the impressive trilogy of Lord of the Rings features… can we at least agree on that?
