My one-liner: Unfinished businesses, my precious, unfortunately!
Ananth's review
Some of us have followed Bilbo’s journey with the dwarves with great expectations, expectations that were forged upon and justified by the excellent Lord of the Rings trilogy. Sometimes the expectations were met, sometimes they were exceeded but never as a unit does ‘The Hobbit’ trilogy prove itself to be as well made as its sequel trilogy. Peter Jackson is a director of high capabilities and his screenplay for the Lord of the Rings written in partnership with Fran Walsh and Phillipa Boyens was a textbook example of how to adapt a fantasy with a moral that branched randomly into different story loops. The same trio with the addition of input from Guillermo Del Toro initially wanted two movies to be made out of a relatively small tome. A lot of us felt this was acceptable given the idea was to add bits in from the appendices which have a rich collection of lore. However when it was announced that three movies were going to be made in the place of two, studio greed not much different from dragon greed was suspected and now has been proven true. In saying all that, I am not taking away credit where credits due. ‘The Hobbit : The Battle of the Five Armies’ is the best of the hobbit trilogy but that, sadly, is not saying much. While it has been stripped down to bare action in its 144 minutes, there are bits of unnecessary drama thrown in as well with a single redeeming story loop.
Ananth's review
Some of us have followed Bilbo’s journey with the dwarves with great expectations, expectations that were forged upon and justified by the excellent Lord of the Rings trilogy. Sometimes the expectations were met, sometimes they were exceeded but never as a unit does ‘The Hobbit’ trilogy prove itself to be as well made as its sequel trilogy. Peter Jackson is a director of high capabilities and his screenplay for the Lord of the Rings written in partnership with Fran Walsh and Phillipa Boyens was a textbook example of how to adapt a fantasy with a moral that branched randomly into different story loops. The same trio with the addition of input from Guillermo Del Toro initially wanted two movies to be made out of a relatively small tome. A lot of us felt this was acceptable given the idea was to add bits in from the appendices which have a rich collection of lore. However when it was announced that three movies were going to be made in the place of two, studio greed not much different from dragon greed was suspected and now has been proven true. In saying all that, I am not taking away credit where credits due. ‘The Hobbit : The Battle of the Five Armies’ is the best of the hobbit trilogy but that, sadly, is not saying much. While it has been stripped down to bare action in its 144 minutes, there are bits of unnecessary drama thrown in as well with a single redeeming story loop.
Just as the ‘The Return of the
King’ completed the quest of the fellowship, Bilbo’s journey with the dwarves
is brought to completion with ‘The Battle of the Five Armies’. It wouldn’t be
wrong to call this a war movie given that almost 45 minutes out of its 144
minute running time is spent on visuals of war. While from a technical
standpoint the war scenes are very well made, from a personality
standpoint some of Peter Jackson’s usual grit has been polished away. From the
start of the trilogy, I’ve found that CGI orcs somehow cannot bring back the
visual acuity that the Uruk Hai’s hot breath fogging in the cold air from the
rain around Helms Deep did. It is indeed funny that, without having intended
to, one of the characters in the movie yells out ‘Oh, come on!’ when the next
flurry of CGI creatures is unleashed onto him. Elves are made out to be these
magically agile creatures evidence Legolas’ fluid reverse swing onto horse back
in ‘The Two Towers’ however the only thing missing during some of his visuals in this movie is
an arcade games background. What shines through though is the strength of the
CGI work in showing us Erebor, the ruins of Dale, the wrecking of Lake Town,
the forbidding Gundabad and Sauron’s current stronghold Dol Guldur. Images that
will stay with us when we re-read the books and for that we have John Howe and
Alan Lee’s vision of Middle Earth and
WETA workshops implementation of them to thank.
The story of the dwarves and
their quest forms the core of the book with Bilbo’s journey intertwined with
them to provide the reader a pair of eyes to the spectacle. The moral of the
book and the dwarves journey has been so blown up as only a trilogy worth 745
million dollars with the potential to reap a 3 billion dollar revenue can. ‘The
Battle of the Five Armies’ finds a brooding Thorin who has succumbed to his
lust for gold and treasure. Richard Armitage who was brilliant in the Desolation of Smaug
pulls off the almost evil Thorin to a T, rising to claim his heroic right when
all else has failed and in effect he has escaped his ‘illness’ however not
before causing massive loss of life. Among the rest of the dwarves playing their
requisite roles Balin remains the voice of reason. Billy Connolly is wasted as
Dain Ironfoot, his make up makes it hard to even recognize him under the
prosthetic layers. The unnecessary romance between Kili and Tauriel the elf is
another deviation that takes away from the core of the movie and bores us en
masse every time Tauriel spouts a dreamy dialogue exalting the power of love.
Her king Thranduil maintains his agenda and delivers some really soppy dialogue
as well in a couple of scenes involving Tauriel. Somehow it makes us think,
without any prejudice of course, that the female half of the screenplay writers
came up with these romances and triangles and as a lover of Tolkiens mythologies
I do not see how it contributes to the story arc even a little bit.
Benedit Cumberbatch as Smaug
wreaks his avenging havoc on lake town before the title comes up and is in turn
dealt with by some inventive bow-work from Luke Evans playing Bard the Bowman.
Luke Evans plays his role with the required maturity and restraint and does not
give in to bombast. While some may think
children repeatedly screaming for their father with anxiety written upon their
faces is an emotional frame, the sound of ‘Da! Da! Da!’ made me want to somehow
correct them as quickly and viciously as I could. Lake town, Bard, the Master(Stephen
Fry) and his wormtongue equivalent Alfrid(Ryan Gage) actually provide for
entertainment. Apart from some fan pleasing
cameos from Cate Blanchett(Galadriel), Hugo Weaving(Elrond) and Christopher Lee(Saruman)
when they come to the aid of the caged Gandalf(Ian McKellen) there isn’t too
much that they are need for. Tragic is the omission of more screen time for Beorn which
would have been fulfilling but I suspect the extended edition might have more
things to celebrate. There isn’t too much more to be pleased about in the movie
bar one more story arc.
Martin Freeman as Bilbo Baggins,
the hobbit around whom the studio-coffer-pleaser has been written provides the
single ray of sunshine in the entire movie apart from Richard Armitage’s
brooding take on Thorin. Martin Freeman is the ultimate Bilbo, loyal to a fault
even when he needs to betray to prove his loyalty, he brings forth the true and
warm nature of Hobbits that Tolkien would have wanted us to experience. His
chemistry with Gandalf and his faith in both Bard and Thorin are brought to
life by his ingenious and whimsical portrayal of Bilbo. He does not care much
for riches, war or for the vagaries of the wide world. In the book all he wants
is a full pipe, a cozy armchair and a fireplace to stretch his hairy feet to
and while the burglar aspect of his characterization is built up slightly here his
is the performance that stands out most. Having been dragged out of his
comfortable little hole under and over mountains to face a dragon and to end up
being part of a war, Bilbo comes up trumps when the situation demands it
ensuring that the faith of his friend and wizard Gandalf was not misplaced.
It is with sadness that we
anticipated the ending of the Hobbit trilogy. Being the Middle-Earth-on-film
fanatics that we are we badgered the PVR cinemas staff a lot in the days preceding the
movies release given the tickets were not available for booking. At the end of
the movie it would be unfair to say we were not slightly underwhelmed and while
sitting through the end titles marking the end of our journey through middle
earth on the big screen it wasn’t a few times that we reminded ourselves that
the extended edition might fix some of the things that we found wanting. Peter
Jackson’s work or labour of love as he calls it has been immense and he has
dedicated a large chunk of his life to making these movies. While they will
always be known as his swansong, there is no taking away from the fact that ‘The
Hobbit’ trilogy could have been handled way better and maybe with a little less
heavy handedness. Pandering to the fans would be language that is too strong to
be used with someone of Peter’s acumen but in catering to them he has also done
them a disservice in not providing with Bilbos journey what might have been a
more triumphant return to Middle Earth. However while bidding farewell we
cannot forget the immense pleasure derived from watching talented people come
forth into our reckoning – Martin Freeman, Richard Armitage, Evangeline Lilly,
Lee Pace, Mikael Persbrandt and the return of crowd favourites in Legolas,
Gandalf, Galadriel, Elrond and Saruman(who incidentally kicks more ass than
any 92 year old could or should). The moral of ‘The Hobbit’ perhaps was not as
clear as it should have been to Newline, MGM, Wingnut and Warner Brothers –
Greed is folly.
Three Stars
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