The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies review

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (12A/PG-13, 144 mins)
Director: Peter Jackson
★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

It’s been a fair old trek to get to here, this final part of the Hobbit prequel trilogy. And, much like the experiences of its characters, it’s been a frequently exhausting and arduous journey punctuated by individual moments of relief and enjoyment.

The late decision to make three films rather than two has meant it’s often felt like you were journeying across Middle Earth in real time, and it all began to smack of cashing in. We certainly get value for money in terms of minutes in the cinema, even if this finale is a relatively brisk sub-2.5 hours, but an awful lot of that time feels like we’re treading water.

Has it been worth it in the end? Will many people plough through the six-film marathon of these plus the Lord of the Rings trilogy or will they, like now happens with Star Wars, judiciously skip the weaker entries in order to get to the good stuff?

Certainly one element where this is likely to score with fans is in the linking done to Rings. Some of it might be a bit clunky and forced, but more often than not the bridge building is both fun and evocative and likely to put a Christmas re-watch of Rings on a lot of people’s agendas.

But for now, we rejoin this poor relation directly after the end of last year’s second film, as dragon Smaug wreaks his desolation on the village of Laketown. Exposing the somewhat arbitrary stopping point of Part 2, this episode is swiftly resolved, leaving dwarf leader Thorin (Richard Armitage) in control of the mountain hall of Erebor and its enormous piles of gold.

The trouble is he’s turned mad with power, and a lot of time is spent on Thorin’s intransigence, which is threatening to be the catalyst for war, with the elves and men also ready to stake a claim to the treasure. But it’s nowhere near as compelling as the hold the One Ring had over Frodo and mostly there’s a lot of sitting about, which at least makes a change from all the walking in the first two movies.

Having really shone in the second movie, Martin Freeman is sidelined here as Bilbo becomes a minor character in his own movie. But when Bilbo does get involved, he proves the worth of Hobbits and offers a reminder of why we love them.

It’s difficult though to have any great investment in these characters beyond Bilbo and wizard Gandalf (Ian McKellen), which is a major issue. Billy Connolly turns up as a dwarf king with bizarrely computer enhanced features, to swear and stick the nut on orcs but, as ever, almost none of Bilbo’s companions stand out.

Lord of the Rings succeeded because we cared deeply about the Fellowship, but that’s sadly lacking here. It also worked because it blended real world locations with brilliantly realised visual effects; now it looks like none of it might be real at all, especially darker scenes. Just because Peter Jackson has the ability to create anything with CGI, it doesn’t mean he should. Frankly at times it looks ridiculous, and when you’ve got dwarves riding rams up mountainsides you’ve probably gone too far.

This is highlighted even more by the truly horrific High Frame Rate process, which makes proceedings look like a filmed play, shiny and inauthentic and totally lacking in filmic texture. It’s not too bad when no one has to move but most of the time it’s embarrassing, and it’s astonishing that someone thought something that looked as bad as this was acceptable to project for top dollar.

Still, Jackson is more than capable of conjuring greatness in bursts, starting with Smaug’s terrifying, fire-breathing onslaught, even if we then have to wade through the added guff and padding of the arguments among the Laketown survivors.

But the movie is called The Battle of the Five Armies, and when the men, elves, dwarfs, orcs and various sundry beasties go head to head, it really earns its corn. Pretty much the final hour is a massive ruck that impresses with its sheer scale at least, though some of the armies look a little too mathematically precise in the way they're computer generated. Things get much more involving when it splinters off into individual fights, some of which are exciting and entertaining, some of which go on forever.

In the end, if it works at all, it’s because of the world we’re in, it’s because of what Tolkien has created and it’s because Lord of the Rings exists and we know there’s so much more to see here.

No doubt Jackson cares about the product he’s delivering with this prequel trilogy, but ultimately it will probably be looked upon by audiences as an obligation rather than a necessity.

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug review

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (12A/PG-13, 161 mins)
Director: Peter Jackson
★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

A decade ago, Peter Jackson made our Christmases with his astonishing realisations of The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

This time last year he came to us more like Scrooge or Alan Rickman in Robin Hood with his cry of “call off Christmas”, with the plodding, ruinously boring The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, the first part of his new prequel trilogy based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s beloved (but quite thin) book.

With so much extraneous gubbins crammed in, fears grew that Jackson was milking a dead cow, but miraculously he’s managed to get the series back on track with this second episode, one that both cleanses the palette after the first film, and frustrates that it turned out to be so disappointing.

It begins with a flashback, which could be viewed as just another piece of stuffing designed to justify what is yet again a hefty running time. But it’s a fairly brief tidbit that shows us how the wizard Gandalf (Ian McKellen) met dwarf Thorin (Richard Armitage) to persuade him to try to unite the kingdoms and reclaim the throne that was taken from him.

Also give thanks that this serves as a very potted recap of all the setup done in Unexpected Journey, so that we can then get straight back in to the action and not have to worry about Jackson’s indulgences on the level of what we witnessed first time, when Elijah Wood’s Frodo and old Bilbo were wheeled out for no justifiable reason whatsoever.

So we find Gandalf, hobbit Bilbo (Martin Freeman) and his newly acquired dwarf pals being chased across Middle Earth by murderous orcs as they continue deep into their quest to reach the dwarf kingdom, Erebor.

This is an immediately pleasant reminder of what many have come to love about these movies: brilliantly costumed and made-up actors running across breathtaking New Zealand landscapes being filmed by swirling helicopters.

And it’s as a visual spectacle that The Desolation of Smaug really triumphs. It’s clear from the first frame that this is a richly textured world, brim-filled with exceptional production design, albeit much of it of the computer generated variety. That’s particularly true if you avoid the heinous High Frame Rate presentation that so hamstrung last year’s movie, making it look not so much like Middle Earth as a home-videoed pantomime.

The quest itself has also turned into a far more compelling one, as we bounce from chase to fight in a whiz-bang opening hour that introduces us to bear-men and giant spiders while backgrounding the threat of the Necromancer, a malevolent force hanging hanging over the world.

We also never lose sight of the dark power of the Ring, the trinket binding these movies together, and the effect this has on Bilbo. His encounter with the spiders reminds us that this isn’t just an action fantasy, but a work unafraid to tackle themes of greed and corruption, and we’re blessed to be in the hands of such splendid actors as McKellen and Freeman, though they do disappear for a stretch in a midsection that represents one of the few dips in pace as we arrive at a man-village.

But again, bigger themes are at hand, as we pause to blend in a real-world message of poverty and the gulf between the rich and the underprivileged, wrapped in the politics of a fantasy village. We even get an appearance from Stephen Fry.

Plenty has been added, as is Jackson’s way, but not too much that seems pointless or superfluous – silly dishwashing scenes and the like that slowed the first film to a crawl. But otherwise the movie rarely loses sight of its primary action goal. There’s loads of peril, even among the numerous pitstops, and the threat of a deadline helps too. And outwith that slight middle sag, this is rattling, exciting and executed with near-unparalleled technical bravado.

And Jackson has remembered how to do action again. A dwarf-orc-elf fight alongside and down a raging river is a masterclass in momentum, thrust and imagination, and stands as one of the highlights of all our time in Middle Earth.

Bilbo the character earns his corn too, after being a bit of a passenger in his own movie first time out. He displays increasing courage and fortitude, and actually does some burgling, fulfilling the role he was brought into the quest for in the first place. The titular Smaug, the dragon that laid waste to Erebor, is a fine creation too, and we get to see plenty of him in a second half where the raised stakes really come into play.

Mind you, more than half the dwarfs are still anonymous or interchangeable, perhaps inevitable with so many of them. Other new characters work fairly well though, particularly the snobby, dwarf-hating elves, each with their own motivations and desires. Old Fellowship member Legolas (Orlando Bloom) returns alongside newcomer Tauriel (Evangeline Lilly) to knock countless orc heads together (this is a remarkably violent film, by the way, surely setting the record for decapitations in a family-friendly certificate), one of a few nice touches to tie us in with the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

And we’re back to honouring those great films after the initial misstep. Though the decision to break a slim Hobbit story into three films is still an ethically shaky, financially driven one, at least audiences will be getting something for their money this time around. Christmas is saved, for now.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey review

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (12A/PG-13, 169 mins)
Director: Peter Jackson
★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆

Over the Christmases of 2001, 2002 and 2003, New Zealand director Peter Jackson delivered with The Lord of the Rings a trio of rich, rewarding fantasy epics that garnered billions at the box office, 17 Oscars and left a lasting legacy as one of the greatest achievements in the history of cinema.

It was a well too deep not to return to, and after years of legal wrangling and delays that eventually saw the departure of would-be director Guillermo del Toro, Jackson returns for a new prequel trilogy. And we all remember what happened the last time someone made prequels to a beloved trilogy.

Jackson has only made two films since the trilogy closed nine years ago, King Kong and The Lovely Bones, and the fear that he’s sunk into self-indulgence (something never exactly far from the surface when it came to The Lord of the Rings, if truth be told) is confirmed here.

The final instalment of Harry Potter started an insidious trend towards splitting films adapted from popular books into as many parts as possible for maximum profits. The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien, is not a long book. And yet it’s one to which Jackson will devote around 500 minutes of screen time between now and the summer of 2014.

Though it’s a chance to reunite with some old friends, in one of the many instances of padding that stretch this first film’s ridiculous running time, we begin on the same day that The Fellowship of the Ring did; the birthday of Bilbo Baggins, a hobbit.

As Bilbo (Ian Holm) writes about his adventures that he will tell to his nephew Frodo (Elijah Wood), we also get a separate prologue about the great dwarf city of Erebor, which was devastated and then occupied by the fearsome dragon Smaug.

From there we jump back to 60 years earlier, when Bilbo was a younger hobbit, and now played by Martin Freeman. He meets the wizard Gandalf (Ian McKellen), who along with a bunch of dwarfs, descends on Bilbo’s home wanting him to join an adventure, a quest to take back Erebor from Smaug.

It’s really an awful lot of extraneous gubbins, watching 13 dwarfs turn up and eat and sing and carry on for what would be about a quarter of the running time of most normal films. Where The Lord of the Rings took its time to establish a world of richness, this is simply characters sitting about, and it’s deeply indulgent.

And for all its stunning spectacle and massive action, it was at its heart a story of friendship and overcoming adversity, and peaceful creatures showing courage in the most trying of circumstances. This deals with similar themes, and Freeman is well cast as the reluctant hero, but it’s often much too beholden to a formula.

The opening half is leisurely beyond necessity, with only the occasional raised eyebrow from McKellen to keep you going. A stop at the realm of Rivendell offers some more recapturing of past glories, as Hugo Weaving and Cate Blanchett’s elf lords return, alongside Christopher Lee’s Saruman, but it’s a brief respite from the drudgery.

And then of course there’s Gollum, the computer generated foe voiced and motion captured by Andy Serkis, who was such a highlight of the original films. His smaller part here is very welcome, and his battle of wits with Bilbo showcases the film’s strongest moments.

On the action front, Jackson has revealed his cards one too many times, and every sequence follows an identical pattern: the introduction of an enemy in the shape of an orc or a goblin or a troll, then an extended chase and battle, before a saviour appears from off-screen to rescue the situation.

But beyond the lack of involving incident, it’s also shorn of any character depth or range. Most of the dwarfs (and there are 13 of them, remember) are entirely anonymous. Those that get a bit of screen time, James Nesbitt and Ken Stott among them, offer no real lasting impression, leaving the rest to simply get lost in the mire.

Mention must be made of High Frame Rate, a process in which the film is shot and projected at 48 frames per second rather than the traditional 24. This is no mere aesthetic misstep, but a hideous error that blights the entire production, rendering the image like a 1970s TV show shot on videotape, flat and shiny and just plain odd.

On the one hand, the story and the content must be king. But there’s no escaping that the visual majesty of Jackson’s original films played a significant part in their success, and to have that diluted is a tragedy. Why spend this much money to make something that looks like an Australian soap blended with the old ITV fantasy adventure show, Knightmare?

It just adds to what is a supremely disappointing spectacle that alternates between boredom and silliness. The genuine hope has to be that Jackson was rushing towards the Christmas release date for this opener, and with a year until he unleashes Part II, let’s pray he has the time to fix his mistakes.

Black Death review

Black Death (15, 101 mins)
Director: Christopher Smith
★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

 It’s 1348 and the Black Death is in full swing throughout England. Enter Sean Bean, seemingly straight off the set of Lord of the Rings, as an envoy of the bishop charged with finding a village where it is claimed the plague has no effect and the suspicion is that devilry is afoot. Though a bit of a slog at times, Black Death benefits from an interesting character in Bean, who’s not so much a hero as a murderer for god, and it becomes a far more fascinating movie when he and his men reach the village. It’s grim and grimy, like something Hammer rivals Tigon would have churned out in the early 70s, with some brutal and chaotic swordplay and a nice line in anti-ecumenical rancour, even if it ultimately doesn’t have the courage of its convictions.