I gave the first Hobbit (An Unexpected Journey), 6 out of 10
(it was beautiful, but long and slow, with a surprising amount of
singing). I gave the second Hobbit
(Desolation of Smaug) 7 out of 10 (better, more interesting, and Dragon!) . And now, we have (finally) the third Hobbit
movie, The Battle of the Five Armies. Be
forewarned – this one is long, mainly because I feel compelled to explain everything
that happened – also, be doubly forewarned – I have not read the books!
The tail end of this epic is once again directed by Peter
Jackson, and this one is 2 hours and 24 minutes, which is the shortest of the
three (2 was 2 hours 41 minutes, and 1 was two hours 49 minutes) and picks up
immediately after the ending of the previous film – which ended just as Smaug
had finished berating Bilbo for what felt like hours and the dwarves had tried
to drown him in gold. That didn’t work,
because as you know – dragons love gold (still befuddled by that). In any case, he heads over to destroy
Laketown as the elf Tauriel takes Fili, Kili, Oin, Bofur (those are all
dwarves) and Bard’s children (those are human Laketown residents), out of the
city. Bard breaks free and kills Smaug
(after Smaug talks at him for a bit) with the black arrow.
The survivors of the town wash up on a shore
near them and head over to the ruins of Dale (which apparently was a city just
outside the gates of Erebor – the dwarf kingdom, or that place under the
mountain that Smaug was in). Kili tells
Tauriel he loves her, and she seems about to go with it, when Legolas and his
wig show up, and she decides to go with him to Gundabad because those orcs were
suspicious, and he’s worried about what the orcs of Gundabad are up to. Meanwhile – Kili, Fili, Oin, and Bofur arrive
at Erebor, and learn from Bilbo that Thorin Oakenshield – the dwarf king – who was
the point of this mission (to get him back to his kingdom) is now suffering
from dragon sickness – or, you know, wanting to hoard all your gold. He’s going a bit crazy looking for the
Arkenstone, which Bilbo has ‘borrowed’.
As you remember (or, if you’re anything like me, you don’t),
Gandalf is still being held at Dol Guldur in a cage. He seems to telepathically call Radagst, to
ask for assistance, which upsets Sauron and his nine not-quite-yet ring
wraiths. They appear, not really
corporeal yet, and Galadriel, Elrond, and Saruman show up like a bunch of
badasses and kick the wraiths back to the where-ever-it-is they were coming
from. The big Sauron eye shows up for a
second, but Galadriel uses some sort of elf magic to cast him into the horizon. Seriously – he just drifts away towards the
sunset. This wears out Galadriel, but
does free/revive Gandalf, who gets taken away by Radagast and his still-awesome
jackrabbit-pulled sled, who he then promptly ditches to warn Erebor of the
approaching army of Orcs, led by Azog the Defiler – even though Bolg (who has
no nickname) is heading north to get another army of Orcs from Gundabad. Saruman tells Elrond to take Galadriel to
leave Sauron to him (treachery is the way of the Sith), which is apparently
when he starts working with the big eye.
Bard and the Laketown folks stay in Dale, and he leaves
Alfrid (a horrible, terrible person who worked for the Master of Laketown
before he was killed by falling dragon) on watch. Alfrid of course misses the fact that
Thranduil has shown up overnight with his army of wood elves in super shiny
armor and supplies for the people.
Thranduil (who is the wood elf king, and Legolas’s father) is riding the
most magnificent giant deer/elk/moose ever CGIed, and is all pissy because
apparently there are elf gems in the treasure pile in Erebor that he wants
back. Bard wants the pile of gold that
Thorin promised the people of Laketown – after all, everything they had is gone
due to the dragon that Thorin pissed off.
Thranduil and Bard decide to work together to go into Erebor – since Thorin
has commanded the dwarves to block up the entrance (which they accomplish
really quickly, or maybe really slowly?
There’s no way to tell how much time is passing in this movie).
Gandalf arrives to warn of the approaching
orc army, and Thranduil and his ego doubt all that. Bilbo uses the ring again (each time you use
it, it corrupts your soul! And calls out
to its master! Stop using it!) to sneak
out, he tells Thranduil, Bard, and Gandalf that Thorin is completely bonkers, and
that he took the Arkenstone. He gives it
to Thranduil and Bard, telling them that Thorin will trade whatever they want
for it – since he wants it more than anything else.
The next day – the dwarves are gearing up – and Thorin gives
Bilbo a mithril shirt (elvish chain mail, that will come into play in the LOTR
stories). The armies of Bard (which is
not much of an army, just some poorly equipped Laketown survivors) and
Thranduil meet up at the gate of Erebor and tell Thorin they have the Arkenstone,
and ask him to trade for the gold/elf gems.
Thorin doubts they really have it, but Bilbo tells him it is the real
one, and that he gave it to them. That
pisses Thorin off, and he’s about to throw Bilbo over the wall, when Gandalf
distracts him and Bilbo gets away. Then,
randomly, a dwarf army shows up, led by Dain (Thorin’s cousin) – apparently having
received word that Erebor is back in dwarf hands and Smaug is dead (how did
they get that message?). They threaten
the elves, who are not impressed, and are preparing to attack when Azog’s army
or Orcs shows up – forcing the dwarves, men, and elves to fight against them
together.
Thorin at first refuses to fight, and has a bit of a trippy
guilt sequence, when he finally regains his mind and leads his dwarves out of
Erebor into the fray. This bolsters the
army that was being outnumbered by the orcs and the tide starts to turn. Thorin takes his best fighters (Dwalin, Fili,
and Kili) to Ravenhill (which apparently is a big hill of ruins that was right
next to Dale the whole time, and is where Azog is leading his forces from) to
kill Azog – thinking that will break the rest of the orcs. Tauriel and Legolas arrive back at Dale, just
as Thranduil was thinking about retreating, because he’s seen enough elf blood
spilled (what about those gems you were so serious about a minute ago?). Legolas and Tauriel head up to Ravenwood to
let Thorin know that Bolg is coming in from Gundabad with another army of orcs
and bats (bats? What?). Bilbo volunteers
to go tell Thorin as well.
At Ravenhill – Thorin and company suddenly have to deal with
an army of Goblin mercenaries (which is no problem for them – the goblins are
on screen all of 2 minutes, maybe)after riding up the hill on mountain goats (where did they come from?). Both
Fili and Kili get killed by Azog – Tauriel takes this really hard, because she
realizes she did love Kili, and he did get killed trying to protect her. Legolas battles Bolg to save Tauriel, and
Thorin battles Azog on a frozen lake (why is there a frozen lake on top of a
mountain of ruins?). Thorin wins – but is
mortally wounded. Bilbo wakes up to see the giant eagles appear carrying
Radagast and Beorn the sometimes a bear – sometimes a man guy from the previous
story into the battle. He makes it over
to Thorin just to make peace with him as he dies.
Legolas tells Thranduil that he can’t go back with him (not
sure why), so Thranduil suggests he ride north to meet a ranger named Strider,
because it will be key in the next book.
Bilbo says goodbye to the remaining dwarves and heads for home with
Gandalf. Gandalf leaves him just before
reaching the Shire, telling Bilbo to be wary of magic rings, and Bilbo lies and
says it fell out of his pocket – you have to know by now you cannot lie to
wizards. Bilbo arrives home to find his
possessions being auctioned off, because he was presumed dead. He clarifies who he is, and goes into his
house. We then catch up with old Bilbo –
just on the day Gandalf comes back to visit 60 years later.
The cast is the same, there’s no one really new
in this one,
- Ian McKellen plays Gandalf, still gray, and still grumpy, but fun.
- Martin Freeman plays young Bilbo (Ian Holme plays old Bilbo). He really does a good job in this movie as Bilbo begins to step into his own and gain some confidence.
- Richard Armitage plays Thorin, and while the going crazy sequence was weird – he did a great job everywhere else. The final battle between he and Azog was great.
- The other dwarves are once again, almost indistinguishable – except for Kili. Ken Stott plays Balin, Graham McTavish plays Dwalin, William Kircher plays Bifur, James Nesbitt plays Bofur, Stephen Hunter plays Bombur, Dean O’Gorman plays Fili, Aidan Turner plays Kili, John Callen plains Oin, Peter Hambleton plays Gloin, Jed Brophy plays Nori, Mark Hadlow plays Dori, and Adam Brown plays Ori.
- Orlando Bloom plays Legolas again, and in this one, he’s all determination and bitterness.
- Evangeline Lilly plays Tauriel, and say what you want about her being a made up character for the movie – she’s great, and I’m glad she’s there, otherwise there would be almost zero women in the movie. Unfortunately, she is belittled with a love triangle storyline between Kili and Legolas, but at least she was there.
- Lee Pace is once again the very best part of this movie. He was the best part of the second one, and was barely in it. This time, he gets to be in the majority of the movie, and ride that awesome deer-thing, and fight a bunch of orcs, and chew the hell out of all the scenery – awesome.
- Cate Blanchett plays Galadriel, and she gets a little scary when banishing Sauron.
- Hugo Weaving has basically a cameo with a hero’s entrance as Elrond.
- Christopher Lee plays Saruman – and I really don’t know how anyone trusts him, he’s clearly evil.
- Mikael Persbrandt plays Beorn the Bear – very briefly.
- Sylvester McCoy plays Radagast the brown.
- Luke Evans plays Bard, the sudden leader of Laketown, who was pretty great with that black arrow to defeat the dragon, then really steps up in the battle.
- Ryan Gage plays the terrible Alfrid, who never gets his comeuppance, which I found very irritating – but perhaps that character turns into the Wormtongue character in the LOTR stories? Otherwise, I could not understand why he gets away.
- Manu Bennett plays Azog – and once again, I really wish he had been a practical effect instead of a digital one, it would have made a difference for me.
- John Tui plays Bolg – same deal there.
- Benedict Cumberbatch voiced both Smaug and the necromancer, who turned into the big eye that would become Sauron.
- Billy Connolly brought some fun to Dain, the dwarf who rides into battle on a war-pig, and has tusks in his beard to match his steed. He was fantastic.
So – overall, I suppose I liked it, but I sure didn’t love it. Once again, the movie looks amazing, but I have to say – I really miss the guys-in-suits look of the Orcs from the LOTR movies. The orcs in this series are all CGI, and that makes me check out a bit from the story. Azog was an impressive figure, but why not have Manu Bennett in prosthetics, instead of CGI? It had this amazing ability to have
too much going on, and be boring at the same time. The battle sequences are so big that they can
overwhelm the audience, and again, they caused me to check out a bit. The smaller fights that were more one-on-one
were more interesting to watch. I would
have loved more practical effects, and I almost could have used a map here and
there to help figure out where all these locations were in relation to one
another. At least this one ended once –
well, maybe three times – instead of the six endings on Return of the
King. It’s beautiful, and it’s fun, it’s
still a little too long, and there are a lot of loose ends (what about the
elf-gems? Where did those goblins come
from, and where did they go? What was the deal with the bats?) And, what were the five armies? Elves, Men, Dwarves, Orcs – then the
goblins? Or the second Orc army? Or the eagles? But, overall, it’s certainly
entertaining.
7 out of 10, tied with the previous one. Lost points for the aforementioned questions,
and gained points for Lee Pace.
Bonus Video 1: How the Unexpected Journey should have ended.
Bonus Video 2: How Desolation of Smaug should have ended
Bonus Video 3: Honest
Trailer for LOTR
Bonus Video 4: The 2014 San Diego Comic-Con Hobbit Panel - hosted by Stephen Colbert!
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