The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies
2014
***
Director: Peter Jackson
Cast: Ian McKellen, Martin Freeman, Richard Armitage, Benedict Cumberbatch, Evangeline Lilly, Lee Pace, Luke Evans, Ken Stott, James Nesbitt, Orlando Bloom, Cate Blanchett, Hugo Weaving, Christopher Lee, Billy Connolly, Ian Holm
Following An Unexpected Journey and The Desolation of Smaug, the concluding part kicks off with Smaug's last stand, a visceral action set piece which offers the most thrilling fifteen minutes in the entire saga. When the smoke settles, the Dwarves reclaim the Lonely Mountain, but Thorin Oakenshield is struck by dragon sickness and goes against his own word to protect the gold. As the Elves and the people of Lake-town are about to take what's theirs by force, Gandalf brings news that vast armies of Orcs are on their way. If the first two parts were a series of captures and escapes, the final movie, the shortest of the three, is repetitive in a different way. The titular battle, which J.R.R. Tolkien described in two sentences, takes about two hours of screen time. To Jackson's credit, the entire Hobbit series ties in nicely with the original LOTR trilogy to form a narratively and stylistically cohesive body of work. However, that is also the drawback, as the last three movies only offer about eight hours of the same with diminished emotional impact. The familiar thematic beats (bravery, sacrifice, honour, friendship) are there, and so are the numerous large-scale battle scenes. After six CGI-heavy fantasy epics, I would be happy to close the book on Middle-earth.
