By Mark HadleyTuesday 23 Dec 2014MoviesReading Time: 4 minutes
The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies is being pitched by its distributors as, ‘the defining moment of the Middle Earth legend,’ – and I’m afraid they may be right.
Based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s best-selling children’s book,The Battle of the Five Armies is the third and final installment in a trilogy nine years in the making. Bilbo (Martin Freeman) and the company of thirteen dwarves led by Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitage) have reclaimed The Lonely Mountain. The terrible dragon Smaug has been dispatched by the deft aim of Laketown favourite Bard. But that doesn’t mean this company of adventurers is free and clear. Armies are converging on the mountain stronghold – dwarves, elves, men, some looking for recompense, others revenge – and Thorin is determined not to bow to their demands. But only Gandalf the wizard knows that Sauron the dark lord has returned in the form of the shadowy Necromancer. He is about to unleash a tidal wave of orcs, goblins, vampire bats and trolls on the free peoples and usher in a new dark age. Unless, that is, they can surrender their enmities and unite.
The Battle of the Five Armies is the very definition of epic. The titular struggle itself takes up more than half of its160 minutes. Given that the battle scenes from The Lord of the Rings have set the benchmark for fantasy films for decades to come, that might not be a bad thing for some. There are great additions – look out for Billy Connolly as Thorin’s cousin – but some of the content clearly verges on the ridiculous. Minor characters are given far too much screen time resulting in a few moments of what can only be described as Monty Python madness. Trolls and orcs that previously shuddered and died in the sunlight seem to have forgotten their previous afflictions. And ‘Were Worms’ that look like they’d be more at home in a Dune epic create all manner of logic problems – leaving the real story to be swamped by a wave of swords, slingstones, arrows and subplots…
What was a single-focus adventure for young readers has collected more storylines than an orc has fleas. The writers have teased out elements like Thorin’s obsession with finding the fabled Arkenstone and turned it into a full-blown lust for gold called ‘dragon’s sickness’. The White Council’s battle against the Necromancer – a few lines from Tolkien – has been promoted to the plot’s driving force. Composite character’s like Azog, the great white goblin, have earned back-stories; Lord of the Rings favourites like Legolas are wondering where their love lives are headed. And invented individuals like the she-elf Tauriel (who has fallen in love with the dwarf Kili) are spawning entire asides on inter-racial relationships.
But somewhere underneath this mountain of additions is the loneliest character of all – Bilbo.
When Tolkien wrote The Hobbit he set out with a clear vision of transforming a self-centred figure who looked, “… more like a grocer than a burglar,” into a mature servant. The final chapters around which Jackson has built his tale actually focus on Bilbo making his biggest gain of all. Bilbo has become so certain of what he believes in that he is prepared to sacrifice even his friendships to do what is both necessary and right. It’s character not conflict, service not success the author aims for.
However in The Battle of the Five Armies Gandalf (Ian McKellan) summons the forces of the West to war with the cry,
“Listen to me! Darkness will be upon us… You have but one question to answer, how shall this day end?”
This is a call the secular world is very familiar with: to fight until our strength secures the future we desire. But Tolkien the Christian had a different understanding of that ultimate battle. Years later Gandalf and Bilbo are discussing his unexpected journey and our little hero suggests that fulfilled prophecies are really just the reflections of an individual’s efforts. But the wizard cautions him not to be vain:
“You don’t suppose, do you, that all your adventures and escapes were managed by mere luck, just for your sole benefit? You are a very fine person, Mr Baggins, and I am very fond of you; but you are only quite a little fellow in a wide world after all.”
The Battle of the Five Armies is a spectacle that’s not to be missed, but what it misses is the author’s intention. In the end we are not the heroes who reshape the world but the ones charged with doing the right thing in our little corner of it. And if we dedicated ourselves to that, we will find ourselves happily part of Someone Else’s greater plan.
Rating: M
Distributor: Warner Bros
Release Date: December 26