What’s it about?
A hobbit gets caught up in… gods you should know this by know. I feel as if I’ve been in this cinema for years.
What did we think?
The third and final instalment of The Hobbit films is, rather thankfully, the shortest of the trilogy yet still manages to be too long. It doesn’t have as much bloating as its predecessors but there is still too many scenes and an elongated ending.
On the VERY positive side it also features an amazing battle scene that delights in both quality and length and Jackson doesn’t beat around the bush too much before getting into it. The plot wraps up nicely and the action abounds in an incredibly entertaining way and while it’s a shame it wasn’t a bit tighter (read shorter) this was probably the most entertaining of the three comfortably.
Ben says: Perhaps film studios are as susceptible to gold fever as dwarf lords, after all. No doubt will scrutiny of The Battle of the Five Armies linger on whether it is the bloated product of ego and greed.
“Too long! And nothing happens!” some cried of the first act, 2012’s An Unexpected Journey. “It’s all just CG action!” of last year’s follow-up, The Desolation of Smaug. Five Armies is all of this, yet none of it.
Sure, Jackson piles on the colossal – and visually stunning – battles but this epic has humour and heart. Armitage’s vulnerability as Thorin descends. Freeman’s perfect hobbit Everyman sensibility and befuddlement. And a post-crescendo scene of aching tenderness in which only Gandalf’s pipe does the talking.
Never will it escape the shadow of universal acclaim cast by the genre-milestone Rings trilogy, but as a companion piece, history may yet cherish the Hobbit film cycle. It’s wondrous. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.