The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

 

“Oh, come on!” shouts a disbelieving Billy Connolly at the outbreak of a battle in the third and final Hobbit film, as giant worms burst forth from the ground heralding the arrival of yet another army. It’s as if the actor - playing a dwarf who rides a CGI pig into battle no less – is being used to pre-empt criticisms of yet another of Peter Jackson’s many embellishments to JRR Tolkien’s story.

The giant worms, not to mention the titular five armies, show up roughly an hour into the final part of The Hobbit trilogy. Prior to that, without so much as a recap, we pick up exactly where the previous movie finished. Bilbo (Martin Freeman) and his thirteen dwarf companions have finally reached the Lonely Mountain, and succeeded is royally pissing off its inhabitant, the dragon Smaug (voiced and motion captured by Freeman’s Sherlock co-star Benedict Cumberbatch). When we last saw him, Smaug was heading to the nearby Laketown to wreak revenge on its inhabitants for helping the dwarfs. And wreak revenge he does, with his terrifying, wonderfully realised assault on the town.

The rest of the film struggles to live up to its strong opening. Smaug’s the best character in the trilogy and - for reasons we won’t divulge in case you’re one of the two people who’ve never read The Hobbit – he’s not in this film much, and his presence is sorely missed.

Following the diversion to Laketown, the main focus of the rest of the film is firmly on the battle for control of the mountain and the vast fortune it contains. The various factions from the previous movies – dwarfs, men, elves and orcs - descend on Bilbo and the dwarfs, in some cases to claim their share, in others to kill them. All is not well within the company of dwarfs however. Thorin, having regained his kingdom, is determined to defend it and its wealth at all costs, even if it means the lives of all his companions. Thorin’s descent into greed and madness, hinted at in the previous movie, is full blown here, and well played by Richard Armitage, who comes close to stealing the movie from Freeman.

As for the climactic battle itself, although epic, by Jackson’s standards it feels slightly underplayed, lacking the scale of the two major battles in the The Lord Of The Rings. There’s nothing here to rival the brutality of Helm’s Deep, the grandeur of the Ride of the Rohirrim, or even the audience pleasing of Legolas taking on giant elephants single handed. Indeed, the focus soon switches from the main battle to follow several characters on a mission to defeat Orc leader Azog.

Elsewhere, Ian McKellen’s Gandalf is still imprisoned by Sauron. Fortunately for the wizard, the Middle Earth Avengers - Elrond, Saruman and Galadriel – soon come to his rescue. Cate Blanchett undertakes a rescue mission wearing a dress that would be considered OTT on Oscar night, and the 92 year old Christopher Lee gets some impressive, CGI assisted fight scenes. Unlike some of Jackson’s more controversial additions, this confrontation is at least mentioned by Tolkien as taking place during the novel, even if he never described it. It’s embellishments like this, and the resulting expansion of a 300 page book into a lengthy movie trilogy, that have of course been the main criticism of the Hobbit movies.

 

You’ve got to feel for Jackson. After adapting The Lord Of The Rings, to universal critical and commercial success, what was he supposed to do with The Hobbit? Tolkien’s tale of a Hobbit and a group of dwarfs who set out to tackle a dragon is one of the most beloved children’s books of all time. Compared to its sequel however, it’s a seriously lightweight affair, not to mention not very adaptation-friendly.  Of the fifteen lead characters, twelve hardly get more than a couple of lines; events unfold at a breakneck pace; the main villain appears on only a handful of pages;  characters constantly break into song;  there’s assorted talking animals; not a single female character in the book; and the main character spends most of the climactic battle unconscious. 

Jackson had a dilemma. Produce a relatively straight-forward adaptation, or elaborate on the book’s slender text, risking the ire of Tolkienites everywhere? It was essentially a no-win situation, and if The Hobbit had been adapted first, the former option might have been a possibility. Following the huge success of the Rings trilogy however, (not to mention Return Of The King’s 11 Oscars) a straight adaption was pretty much out of the question. Quite simply, The Hobbit is no Lord Of The Rings. It’s a children’s book, a brilliant one admittedly, but it lacks the breadth and complexity of its sequel, and a simple adaptation would be unlikely to satisfy the legion of fans whose only experience of Middle Earth was Jackson’s previous films.

 

So Jackson, along with his co-writers, padded out Tolkien’s story, bringing in new characters, both from Lord Of The Rings, and of their own invention, as well as adding in events not featured, or only hinted at in the book.   

The results have been a mixed bag. On the one hand, they’ve added a lot more substance, rounding out underdeveloped characters, adding coherence to the novel’s various encounters, and tying events more closely to the sequel. On the other, much of what made The Hobbit special hasn’t survived the translation. Instead of giving us a separate story, with its own unique feel, we’ve got an effective, if substandard companion piece to Lord Of The Rings.

If the previous two, or indeed five, movies haven’t won you over to Jackson’s vision, this final offering isn’t going to change your mind. It’s still got the same strengths and weaknesses as its predecessors – Freeman is a fantastic Bilbo, eclipsing the actors who played hobbits in the previous movies. Armitage and McKellen both provide sterling support; the remaining dwarfs are by turn endearing and annoying; Sylvester McCoy’s Radagast is still useless; Evangeline Lilly’s Tauriel is feisty but ultimately unnecessary; and Legolas still looks like he’s played by someone wearing an Orlando Bloom mask.

The trilogy as a whole has been flawed but entertaining, and The Battle Of The Five Armies is very much in the same vein. That said, over the course of six movies, the director has brought Tolkien’s world to life in a way few would have dreamt possible, and this final movie is a satisfying conclusion to a remarkable journey. 

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies is showing at all Nottingham cinemas currently. 

The Hobbit official site