By this time, we’ve all pretty much come to terms with The Hobbit. Those who have seen the last two films are unlikely to abandon ship at this point, regardless of their feelings to this point. Those who have successfully ignored them may well wander across them on HBO in a year or so. Few seem truly inspired after seeing them. They have long stopped being compared to the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and a simple “it was actually pretty good” is damn near high praise. Yet as obligatory as audiences’ attitudes are towards the franchise, they are nowhere near as complacent and routine as The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies.Though I have seen the last two films, I’m always at something of a loss in remembering the important narrative turns when the latest film comes around. I recalled that we left the last film (far and away the franchise’s best, most imaginative entry) with the dragon Smaug (Benedict Cumberbatch) accidentally riled by our passive hero, Bilbo (Martin Freeman), and about to descend on a helpless small village. As little an effect as seemingly cataclysmic events have had in the past films (let’s not forget that An Unexpected Journey featured two mountains coming alive, doing battle, and affecting the narrative not at all), it really is impossible to communicate how unimportant Smaug’s reign of terror actually is, so quickly is he dispatched in a matter so familiar from the last film’s flashback that I was certain they had simply reused footage. They may very well have; I truly do not know.And so we trudge on towards the titular battle, the one promise enticing enough to endure otherwise-endless discussion of territory, treaties, honor, and cowardice. Five armies does sound pretty awesome, after all. The truth is that only three or so show up for most of the battle, the other two destined to swoop in and resolve the conflict in a manner that ties this series even more closely with TheLord of the Rings in unsatisfying conclusions than any of its more blatant callbacks ever did (including the precise finale of this film, as cloying and pointless as they come). But I will say that those three armies do have quite the battle in them, especially near the climax, as Jackson ramps up further and further the one true talent he has left, in coming up with awesomely creative ways for people to fight one another. The best sequence sees Legolas (Orlando Bloom – yep, he’s still here) fight an orc atop a crumbling stone bridge, each step holding the possibility of peril. Even our knowledge of Legolas’s survival is not enough to dissipate the tension Jackson creates. It is mirrored, and nearly bested, by a dwarf’s doomed fight with another orc atop a frozen lake, the crosscutting between the two holding natural emotional fraternity.The series’ strongest attribute has always been Freeman’s performance as Bilbo, providing precisely the humanity (or Hobbitity) that undercuts all the silly talk mentioned at the start of the previous paragraph. Bilbo’s peaceful nature has been key to getting the gang out of sticky situations, and at this point, his attempts to ask “why can’t we all just get along?” seem especially urgent as some combination of bigotry, senseless allegiance, and – most tedious of all – a form of mind control (note to everyone: mind control is never interesting) urged the giant cast towards a battle necessitated only by means of relieving the unendurable boredom of this film’s middle section.Part of this its profound failure lies, then, in how little Bilbo matters in the scheme of things here, his role in the entire picture beautifully summarized when, at the dawn of the battle, he asks Gandalf helplessly, “Is this a good place to stand?” Jackson’s ability to craft a single, beautiful sequence lends an emotional impact I was not expecting to a couple of character deaths, an unthinkable stirring even an hour earlier, when I could scarcely remember any of their names. As gorgeously as Jackson can craft a single moment, though, he has, throughout every single Tolkien adaptation, failed most spectacularly in communicating any sense of the passage of time, so when, as Bilbo returns home and reveals that the month long jaunt you’re sure you’ve experienced in these three films is revealed to have taken him three freaking years, only then does the true emptiness of the series set in. Whatever relationships Bilbo speaks so lovingly of, whatever grand adventure he seems to have taken, whatever emotional impact this singularly absurd collection of films was supposed to have delivered, we were simply not a part of it.
By this time, we’ve all pretty much come to terms with The Hobbit. Those who have seen the last two films are unlikely to abandon ship at this point, regardless of their feelings to this point. Those who have successfully ignored them may well wander across them on HBO in a year or so. Few seem truly inspired after seeing them. They have long stopped being compared to the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and a simple “it was actually pretty good” is damn near high praise. Yet as obligatory as audiences’ attitudes are towards the franchise, they are nowhere near as complacent and routine as The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies.Though I have seen the last two films, I’m always at something of a loss in remembering the important narrative turns when the latest film comes around. I recalled that we left the last film (far and away the franchise’s best, most imaginative entry) with the dragon Smaug (Benedict Cumberbatch) accidentally riled by our passive hero, Bilbo (Martin Freeman), and about to descend on a helpless small village. As little an effect as seemingly cataclysmic events have had in the past films (let’s not forget that An Unexpected Journey featured two mountains coming alive, doing battle, and affecting the narrative not at all), it really is impossible to communicate how unimportant Smaug’s reign of terror actually is, so quickly is he dispatched in a matter so familiar from the last film’s flashback that I was certain they had simply reused footage. They may very well have; I truly do not know.And so we trudge on towards the titular battle, the one promise enticing enough to endure otherwise-endless discussion of territory, treaties, honor, and cowardice. Five armies does sound pretty awesome, after all. The truth is that only three or so show up for most of the battle, the other two destined to swoop in and resolve the conflict in a manner that ties this series even more closely with The Lord of the Rings in unsatisfying conclusions than any of its more blatant callbacks ever did (including the precise finale of this film, as cloying and pointless as they come). But I will say that those three armies do have quite the battle in them, especially near the climax, as Jackson ramps up further and further the one true talent he has left, in coming up with awesomely creative ways for people to fight one another. The best sequence sees Legolas (Orlando Bloom – yep, he’s still here) fight an orc atop a crumbling stone bridge, each step holding the possibility of peril. Even our knowledge of Legolas’s survival is not enough to dissipate the tension Jackson creates. It is mirrored, and nearly bested, by a dwarf’s doomed fight with another orc atop a frozen lake, the crosscutting between the two holding natural emotional fraternity.The series’ strongest attribute has always been Freeman’s performance as Bilbo, providing precisely the humanity (or Hobbitity) that undercuts all the silly talk mentioned at the start of the previous paragraph. Bilbo’s peaceful nature has been key to getting the gang out of sticky situations, and at this point, his attempts to ask “why can’t we all just get along?” seem especially urgent as some combination of bigotry, senseless allegiance, and – most tedious of all – a form of mind control (note to everyone: mind control is never interesting) urged the giant cast towards a battle necessitated only by means of relieving the unendurable boredom of this film’s middle section.Part of this its profound failure lies, then, in how little Bilbo matters in the scheme of things here, his role in the entire picture beautifully summarized when, at the dawn of the battle, he asks Gandalf helplessly, “Is this a good place to stand?” Jackson’s ability to craft a single, beautiful sequence lends an emotional impact I was not expecting to a couple of character deaths, an unthinkable stirring even an hour earlier, when I could scarcely remember any of their names. As gorgeously as Jackson can craft a single moment, though, he has, throughout every single Tolkien adaptation, failed most spectacularly in communicating any sense of the passage of time, so when, as Bilbo returns home and reveals that the month long jaunt you’re sure you’ve experienced in these three films is revealed to have taken him three freaking years, only then does the true emptiness of the series set in. Whatever relationships Bilbo speaks so lovingly of, whatever grand adventure he seems to have taken, whatever emotional impact this singularly absurd collection of films was supposed to have delivered, we were simply not a part of it.
