The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (2014)
Rewatching The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies again made me appreciate it more despite its flaws. Story-wise, it’s the weakest of the three Hobbit movies. There are tonal inconsistencies and sometimes the action becomes silly. This doesn't take away its grandiose and epic scale and the special effects continue to impress. It's difficult not to feel emotional as the saga comes to an end once again.
The story begins where it left off, with Smaug the dragon attacking Laketown. After the threat is subsided, Bilbo (Martin Freeman) becomes wary of Thorin Oakenshield’s greed (Thorin played by Richard Armitage). The Arkenstone has begun corrupting his mind and with the Necromancer’s armies converging on the people of Middle Earth, there is little time to squabble over the riches in Erebor.
If you’re catching this movie for Benedict Cumberbatch as Smaug (or The Necromancer) you'll be severely disappointed. Neither of his characters is prominently featured. This leads us to the biggest flaw of this movie and trilogy overall. I reserved judgment on whether or not a single book could be split into three movies until now. Having witnessed the final results it's clear there was enough material for two films but not three. The filler/additional material required to give all three chapters proper beginnings, middles and ends are obvious. This story's opening should've probably been tacked on in The Desolation of Smaug but it wasn't to force the third chapter.
Two additional issues prevent Battle of the Five Armies from ever reaching greatness. The first are the tonal shifts. On the one hand, we have a very serious story full of danger, armies of monsters, war, and crumbling allegiances. On the other, we’ve got silly, whimsical characters that seem to exist in a totally different world. The best example is Ryan Gage as Alfrid. This cartoonish, two-dimensional villain ultimately is little more than an exaggerated, elongated punchline.
With some villains positioned as truly menacing and others as jokes, this movie has just bitten off more than it could chew. So much of this picture's running time is simply armies laying waste to each other. It looks cool but the emotions get lost in the carnage. At the end of the day, most of the dwarves we met two films ago are still just funny names tied to crazy-looking beards.
The flaws cannot be ignored but to the film's credit, it does offer us new things. We’ve never seen an army of dwarves before. This story also explores new creatures and locations. The battles are too long but the tension is present. Bilbo, Thorin, Gandalf and the Dwarves have been on a long, difficult journey that’s all led this. They are no longer strangers and when the treasure within Erebor threatens the company, your anxiety flares. As the lead-in to The Lord of the Rings it does its job well - I'll even argue it does it better than the book did. If you have the fortune of watching these films in chronological order, you will see a great progression in terms of sweeping character arcs and a real escalation in the threats and the battles fought.
While you will leave wishing The Battle of the Five Armies was better, it still gives you plenty to enjoy, particularly if you watch it right after The Desolation of Smaug. That high you get from seeing the dragon take flight will get you excited to see the big opening of this film and you'll be able to fully immerse yourself in the best parts, the subtle hints of what is yet to come, the personal moments between the characters and the satisfying final showdown between the heroes and the villains. Battle of the Five Armies is flawed, but it’s also epic and a mostly satisfactory extra chapter in the series. (Theatrical version on the big screen, January 30, 2015)
