Director: Peter Jackson
Starring: Martin Freeman, Richard Armitage, Evangeline Lilly, Aidan Turner, Orlando Bloom, Ian McKellen, Luke Evans, Lee Pace, Manu Bennett, Cate Blanchett, Dean O’Gorman, Graham McTavish, Ken Stott, Billy Connolly, Ryan Gage, Benedict Cumberbatch, Christopher Lee, Hugo Weaving, James Nesbitt, Stephen Hunter, Adam Brown, Sylvester McCoy, Mikael Persbrandt
It’s no secret that Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit trilogy hasn’t received quite the adulation as his Lord of the Rings films which this succeeds. An Unexpected Journey in particular has a mass of critics who may well have just been baying for blood. The stage was set for a grand action packed finale to redeem the perhaps slow-building preludes of the previous films. Is this the glory of Return of the King once more?
With Smaug’s (Cumberbatch’s) awakening destroying Lake-Town, Bilbo (Freeman) is caught in the crossfire of men, led by Bard (Evans), and Elves, led by Thranduil (Pace), seeking to claim some of the dwarves’ regained wealth. However, the new king beneath the mountain, Thorin (Armitage), is less willing to dispense of his riches while Gandalf (McKellen) learns of a legion of Orcs similarly converging on Erebor.
This unexpected third instalment was only confirmed mid-2012 and it’s sadly evident that this entire trilogy has been scrapped to a finish. The “trilogy-effect” takes its toll the most here; the scattershot narrative is elongated and overstuffed with some utterly pointless plot threads. Resident cheat Alfrid gets a ridiculous amount of screentime without ever contributing anything of significance. Bard remains one of the few grounded and plausible heroes of the bunch but the human characters are by far the least interesting around.
Thankfully the most human of all the characters keep up their brilliant dynamic. Freeman’s Bilbo and McKellen’s Gandalf only have rare moments together but their own performances are pitch perfect. The surprise hit this time round is Richard Armitage’s Thorin. The king beneath the mountain’s reign becomes plagued by dragon sickness in a borderline terrifying transformation for our once hero.
Although lacking the comic spark of his duo with John Rhys Davis, Orlando Bloom is still fairly entertaining as action-Elf Legolas but there ought to have been more of a set up for the character that we meet sixty years later. Even Bilbo hasn’t become the madcap adventurer that we come to know him as. Five Armies sets up for the world of LOTR but not the people.
Even with the shortest runtime yet, this has by far the most filler space of all the series but at least some of Jackson’s invention in the narrative works successfully. In DoS the Kili-Tauriel-Legolas love triangle felt forced but here it fuels a personal level to the later action scenes. The White Council’s misadventures in Dol Goldur greatly help to develop the LOTR links and the overall shared universe feel.
That latter sequence ends disappointingly early with Sauron’s bizarre acid rock light display replacing potential scenes depicting Saruman’s corruption. That may well have been set aside to focus on the main battle’s development. Each faction’s motives, characters and power are quickly established but swept aside at the arrival of the orcs.
What The Hobbit lost in successful narrative structure it more than gained in visual brilliance. Peter Jackson is at his most David-Lean like in this instalment and all the performances are exactly on point. It may be more of a fizzle out than the big bang we wanted to end the series but is still a worthy entry to both fantasy perfection and cinematic history.
8/10
“I am glad to have shared in your perils. Each and every one of them. It is far more than any Baggins deserves!”
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