THE HOBBIT: THE BATTLE OF THE FIVE ARMIES (2014) review: "The Lonely Mountain..."

The Defining Chapter...

THE HOBBIT: THE BATTLE OF THE FIVE ARMIES is a 2014 film starring well over a dozen actors, most notably Martin Freeman and Ian McKellen, and directed by Peter Jackson. The film follows Martin Freeman as Bilbo Baggins on the final part of his journey, with his company forced to defend the Lonely Mountain against the titular five armies ranging from Orcs to Elves.

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The Battle of the Five Armies stands as the hopefully final film of the Middle-Earth saga with a reasonably satisfying conclusion to the otherwise middling trilogy.

The cast of this film is far too large to have a complete breakdown - however all of the performances seen in this film are more than serviceable, if not great, with the slight exception of a rather CGI-looking Billy Connolly. For some reason his character in particular definitely crosses the uncanny valley. Swiftly moving on, as aforementioned there isn't really any notable stand-out performance throughout the entire film. Everyone does as expected, not bad but not outstanding either.

Will you have peace... or war?

The cinematography by long-time Peter Jackson partner, Andrew Lesnie is as good as the previous Lord of the Rings trilogy, you can understand why he got an Academy Award for Best Cinematography, at least with that trilogy. The film did undeniably look great, however much of that can I owe to the cinematography? That's questionable. The film overall did have a nice style to it - but doesn't have any specific stand out moments that I could pick out because it all really does blend together.

Just like the cast, there is an unusual amount of people writing the screenplay or script. A total of four, including the previous writers of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Peter Jackson and his wife Fran Walsh, as well as Phillipa Boyens, with the rather odd addition of Guillermo del Toro, director and writer of the frankly incredible Pan's Labyrinth as well as most recently, Pacific Rim. 

The screenplay overall is adequate with several little niggling issues such as the obvious initial pacing issues with the character of Smaug (Benedict Cumberbatch). His character was there to die and complete the cliffhanger set up by The Desolation of Smaug, the previous film in the trilogy. The reason I consider this a pacing issue is that there is this sudden burst of action for the first 15 minutes of the film only thereafter to be swung into an entirely different plot. However, this may or may not be attributable to the writers of the screenplay so much as the production, distribution and marketing companies. Without the cliffhanger set by the last film, there would have been no drive the see the next with general audiences, therefore the pacing and overall quality of the films has to suffer in order to ramp up hype for this inevitable final part. Put it into perspective when the whole trilogy gets its also inevitable home release, you're re-watching the whole trilogy and The Desolation of Smaug ends, that whole cliffhanger is rendered entirely pointless unless you're able to conjure up a years worth of hype the entire minute or so it takes to swap discs. (Or choose the film from a digital menu, if you're inclined towards streaming.) It is there purely to service those who don't care about the actual film itself - and only care about the amount of money the film takes at the box office.

There is also some laughable moments tied to Legolas' (Orlando Bloom) fight scenes with Azog the Defiler (Manu Bennett), some of the spectacle fighting that goes on in these scenes is sometimes too far even for a epic fantasy such as the Middle-Earth saga, such as Legolas using falling stepping stones to climb back up and ultimately win the fight against Azog, which makes me feel as if some parts of these scenes aren't scripted (which is heavily unlikely) or were them writing themselves out of a corner frankly. Hell, I could and most likely am thinking way too hard into it and they were just writing these fight scenes on the basis of what they think is the most entertaining... and frankly a bit too over the top.

Howard Shore, also a previous Peter Jackson collaborator on the Lord of the Rings (also doing some other great stuff with David Cronenberg on A History of Violence, Eastern Promises and countless other films), composes yet another epic score to go along with The Battle of the Five Armies, one of the best parts about the film in my opinion, with a mostly gentle or soft quality to it that isn't afraid to ramp up when the titular battle happens... three quarters into the movie.

"I will have war."

I usually don't mention this but really should, the production design and sets utilised by this film, as the Lord of the Rings before it is simply amazing, it creates this living, breathing world that simply looks great while the characters traverse from one set piece to another, the detail of each of the sets lost to some of the film's aforementioned questionable pacing, either going too slowly or far too quickly.

Overall, as much as it may seem that I dislike The Battle of the Five Armies, it is an enjoyable film, but it is a film that should not exist. With the Lord of the Rings you could understand stretching that into a trilogy, as the books themselves were in three parts at about 400 pages a piece. The Hobbit however was only one book that was 300 pages in length. That brings it to roughly a hundred pages per film. The Hobbit trilogy is somehow so bloated with such little story involved. Peter, you will always be a good director, but please, move on. The Middle-Earth needs to be left to its own wits, there is literally not more that you can do with it. The whole Hobbit trilogy seems to follow a similar theme: exceptionally made, all of the pieces should come together and add up, but there is this emotional disconnect that struggles to pull you in. I could only ever recommend this film to anyone who is desperate to see the end of what will hopefully be the last of the saga, but to everyone else? Just go watch the Lord of the Rings trilogy instead.

"Will you follow me, one last time?"