'The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies' Review

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies Review:

Slightly Underwhelming, But A Must-Take Trip to the Cinema Nonetheless

BY IAN TAN

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies marks Peter Jackson’s final foray into the realm of Middle-Earth. The previous two Hobbit films have been a mixed bag for audiences and long-time fans of Lord of The Rings, with the first being too draggy and unnecessarily overlong and the second taking creative liberties to the story and its characters in a way that made it feel more like fan fiction than a proper book to film adaptation.

 Poster: More epic than the actual film

Personally, I did enjoy An Unexpected Journey for the sheer reason of being in Middle Earth again. Plus, there were quite a few standout scenes such as the opening narration and the riddles in the dark scene with Gollum. However, I did feel as if it overstayed its welcome. On the other hand, I thought The Desolation of Smaug was a terrific comeback for Peter Jackson and the franchise, being faster paced with more story threads for audiences to be invested in, an exhilarating barrel sequence and not to mention an impressive CGI Smaug The Terrible. With that being said, does Battle of the Five Armies continue from the success of its predecessor?

It… sort of does. Five Armies picks up right after that last shot in the previous film where Smaug makes his entrance to Lake Town. Adding to the chaos are Elves, led by Thranduil; Orcs, led by Azog The Defiler; Men, led by Bard the Bowman and of course, Dwarves led by Thorin Oakenshield who all participate in an all out war for the treasure of the Lonely Mountain of Erebor, the Dwarves’ homeland.

Once this film begins, there’s no stopping it. Unlike the previous two films, this one has not a single moment in it that felt like things were purposely drawn out longer for the sake of having a single book be turned into three films. Every moment in The Battle of the Five Armies feels important. A sense of weight, urgency and intensity fill each scene much like in Return of the King. The battle sequences in this film are impressive and filled with the kind of visual splendor only Jackson could put on screen, even if they don’t quite reach the epic scale and scope of the climactic battle in Return of the King.

The Defining Chapter: War Is Coming

The performances here are solid all around, save for an at times rather unnecessary Ryan Gage as the cowardly detestable and sometimes annoying Alfrid. Martin Freeman once again nails it as Bilbo Baggins, bringing a sense of underdog bravery that just makes him all the more likable of a character in this film. Richard Armitage, too, has truly grown into his character of Thorin Oakenshield, presenting a vulnerable but loyal leader to his kin of Dwarves. Speaking of Dwarves, each of the 13 members do get their time to shine in some way, shape or form in this one more so than in the previous films, leveling up the drama at times. And although not entirely important to the plot, there are a couple of scenes (involving Galadriel, Elrond and Saruman) that tie in to The Fellowship of the Ring quite nicely, which are neat little nods for LOTR fans. All character arcs and story threads left off from the previous films are all properly concluded in this one, paving the way for the events in Lord of the Rings to occur.

Foreshadowing

Unfortunately, The Battle of the Five Armies does have a few issues that prevent it from being the ideal grand finale of the Middle-Earth saga as some would hope it to be. The most disappointing aspect of the film would have to be the presence of Smaug. The guy made a huge impact in the closing shots of the last film (“I am fire. I am… death.” That line gave me the chills.) but the proceeding attack on Lake Town felt very underwhelming to me, as if the film wanted to be done with it as quickly as possible. This is another prime example of how Waner Bros’ choice to split the films into three instead of two really undermines the fans' (and audiences') satisfaction of these films.  I can picture the last 20 minutes of Desolation of Smaug and the first 5 minutes of Battle of the Five Armies together and just imagine how much better of a sequence the Attack On Lake Town could have been had there not been a split between the films. Also, although all character arcs meet their conclusion here, not all are as satisfying as some would hope. The weakest of these would have to be the entire love-triangle between Tauriel, Kili and Legolas, which feels somewhat misplaced and slightly shoehorned.

Smaug: In the film for 5 minutes, tops.

As mentioned earlier, the battles are indeed very CGI-heavy, sometimes to the point of being overindulgent. For example, several shots of Legolas jumping around doing his cool Elvish acrobatics look like visuals on a PS2 (okay, PS3), especially when watching the film in High Frame Rate (HFR), so I do suggest that you don’t catch it in HFR 3D or you’ll begin to differentiate between what’s CGI and what’s real, which would pull you out of the entire movie-going experience and ultimately defeat Jackson’s purpose of implementing HFR in these films in the first place. Furthermore, the 3D this time isn’t as well utilized as it was in An Unexpected Journey, which I think had the best use of 3D out of the three films. Depth of field is definitely there, but the overall compositions of the shots don’t make the additional dimension any more immersive than a standard 2D viewing would. But for total immersion, please experience this film in IMAX. Yes, the 3D isn’t spectacular nor all that noticeable but the additional height and width of the IMAX screen definitely makes it the only way to be truly immersed in Middle-Earth #OneLastTime.

Screw HFR. IMAX is the way to experience this film.

Overall, The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies is an experience to be had in a theater, preferably an IMAX one. There are a couple of things that bog the film down from being the truly epic conclusion to the Middle-Earth saga fans would’ve liked, but for its merits, a ticket to The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies is worth that last trip to Middle-Earth.

Final Verdict

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies gets 7.2 out of 10 stars - Savor every moment of it guys, we ain’t going back to Middle-Earth again after this ‘un.