The Blabbering Inferno: THE HOBBIT: THE BATTLE OF THE FIVE ARMIES. REVIEWED.

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (2014)

Rating- 12A

Running Time- 2 hours 24 minutes

Directed by- Peter Jackson

Written by- Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, Peter Jackson and Guillermo del Toro

Whether you like the first two Hobbit movies or not, it is almost universally accepted that they are very much underwhelming compared to the Lord of the Rings films which they are inevitably likened to. In my opinion, the first Hobbit film was very slow starting but began to redeem itself towards the end, its successor was much better as the plot advanced in a much more progressive manner and the action set pieces were much more of what I had expected from the Hobbit films. I expected that this positive trend would continue and that the third film would be the best of the trilogy.

In short, I was wrong.

The trilogy as a whole suffers from the issue that many expected would be its main problem which is that they attempted to turn one book into three films. Because of this it is one story split into three which resulted in the first film being nothing but a first act, the second film – the second act, and the third film is most definitely a third act and solely a third act. This means that none of the films have a contained story which results in none of them being as satisfying as perhaps they could be.

The Battle of the Five Armies begins at a rapid pace. The cliff hanger at the end of the second film is resolved within minutes of the opening to this film and that then signals the beginning of probably the most tedious part of the film. It consists of various different parties (the men, the dwarves, the elves, the orcs… Gandalf) all constantly proclaiming words to the effect of ‘there’s going to be a war’. And then, with possibly the least surprising turn of events in cinema history, there’s a war.

The war? Ridiculous and too long. The battle scenes in The Lord of the Rings films were brilliantly executed. They were lively, action-filled and progressed the story all at the same time, this pales in comparison. It quickly devolves into a bunch of guys whacking each other and it not being clear who’s supposed to be fighting who and when a purpose is introduced so is Azog: The Pale Orc (Manu Bennet) which is, as the previous films indicated, only a bad thing.

This guy gives Marvel a run for its money in terms of terrible villains (and I mean that in the worst way possible). When he is first introduced in the Hobbit part one he came across as an overly CGI’d blob of an orc with a stupid, one-dimensional vendetta. I hoped at that point that he was just a ‘filler’ villain who was there to add danger to the film with Smaug the dragon not to be introduced until later in the story. So the fact that he is still a prominent part of this film and, as it turns out, the main antagonist of the entire trilogy, is frustrating to say the least.

After the battle eventually ends, so does the film. Well not really but there is not a lot of a conclusion after the fight, maybe a response to the complaints levelled at the final Lord of the Rings film that its conclusion was far too long. This film goes too far the other way in my opinion though and after spending almost eight hours following the journey of Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman) a hasty return to The Shire and a quick fade to the opening of The Fellowship of the Ring is less than satisfactory.

Defenders of the trilogy will say that it is unfair to compare them to the Lord of the Rings because they are two different stories that adopt different styles and that the Hobbit trilogy itself is a very good series of films. But, while I agree that overall it is a good trilogy of films, they invite the comparison and to be honest they don’t hold a candle to any of the Lord of the Rings films. If they didn’t want the comparison to be drawn they shouldn’t have made Peter Jackson the director, they shouldn’t have hired Howard Shaw as the composer, they shouldn’t have begun the trilogy with Ian Holme and Elijah Wood, they shouldn’t have included Legolas (Orlando Bloom) in a prominent role or Saruman (Christopher Lee), Galadriel (Cate Blanchett), Elrond (Hugo Weaving) and the Nazgul in probably the best fight scene of the trilogy. It seems to me that they tried to recreate the magic of the Lord of the Rings but failed and have in the end only succeeded in reminding the audience of how much better they were by including all of the elements I have just listed.

So overall, this is the worst film of the three and therefore failed in saving a trilogy that was still very much redeemable. I had my doubts before the first film was released that splitting it into three films was a mistake and I am now adamant that I was right. It perhaps would have been too much of a task to condense it all into one film but it could have easily been a two-parter and I believe that it would have been a much more successful format.