The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies review

       Given the critical and commercial success of the original “Lord of Rings” films and it's lasting cultural relevance that culminated in 2004 when “Return of the King” took home the best picture Oscar, I don't think it's a controversial statement to say that Peter Jackson's return to Middle Earth with this needlessly drawn-out Hobbit trilogy has been something of a thudding disappointment. Sure, these prequels have sold plenty of tickets and kept the popcorn industry afloat but even their most ardent defenders would probably agree that there has been a significant and noticeable drop in quality. Shot in a faster frame-rate to smooth out the performance of the 3D graphics and cartoonish CGI, the Hobbit films have been far more interested in testing new technologies and cashing in on recent nostalgia then gracefully or even faithfully adapting the (comparatively shorter) J.R.R. Tolkien novel.
With “Battle of the Five Armies” I found my self finally defeated by my disappointments and  expectations and passively willing to experience this conclusion as a theme park ride rather than a story that I could possibly be engaged in, and actually, once set in that frame of mind, this movie breezed by rather inoffensively. Still, there's hardly any story speak of as it's only intention is to wrap everything up and because of the added content and tangential plot byways the movie gets lost in from time to time, a severer lack of point of view and purpose keeps this installment from transcending the tech-demo action-schlock that Jackson has apparently settled for.
After the dragon Smaug is quickly and anti-climatically destroyed by the peoples of Lake Town the humans are caught in an awkward position when they they ask to borrow some of the newly available treasure to rebuild their burning village and the Dwarves' fearless leader Thorin (Richard Armitage) refuses to share the wealth, now taking up his mantel as the new king of the mountain. The wood elves feel like they deserve a piece too since they did their part in helping the Dwarves reach Smaug's cave, and just as the three armies begin to duke it out for the booty the same Orcs who have  been perusing the heroes since the beginning of the journey come back to finish what they started.
Along side the battle set-pieces that dominate the picture there exists a number of cameo plots, such as Gandalf (Ian McKellen) escaping near death after getting kidnapped by a not-so-mysterious evil force who's planning on making his big comeback, as well as a narratively inert love-triangle between the warrior elf Legolas (Orlando Bloom), the wood elf Taurial (Evangeline Lilly) and Kili (Aiden Turner), a young Dwarve who frankly doesn't have a shot. And in all of this, Bilbo (Martin Freeman), the titular Hobbit, is nearly sidelined and drown out of the film, serving almost no functional purpose.
There are faint ghosts of Tolkein's themes regarding greed and the petty but complicated nature of war and global economics that hums in the background of the spectacle but “Battle of the Five Armies” never settles on one place, one character, or one situation long enough to let anything substantive break through the bells and whistles. On a technical level everything moves along through the nonsense just sufficient to entertain but the the film's slap-dash plotting and heavy reliance on digital trickery kept me from truly believing in this world or caring about the people in it, and after the last three years of enduring this labored mess of an epic I desperately wish Peter Jackson would just go back to making-low budget horror films with puppets.

Grade: C-

Originally published in the Idaho State Journal/Dec-2014

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug review

               First of all, I want to say that as someone who has always struggled with his weight, I think it's great that Peter Jackson has been able to successfully shed much of his excess body mass and find ways to remain healthy and lean. I only wish that he could apply the same kind of discipline to his filmmaking. 3D, wicked-high frame-rates and motion capture have become his new indulgences and these technologies have apparently now taken precedent over coherent storytelling and character development.  

                As a fan—and sometimes defender—of Jackson’s ambitious Lord of the Rings trilogy, I’m at a loss at how the same man behind that behemoth of a juggling act, who, for three films, was able to keep all of his balls in the air at the same time, now can’t manage to competently tell a simple point-A to point-B plot.  I left last year’s “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” with the bare-minimum level of satisfaction and a heap of better-luck-next-time reservations.  Within “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug”, despite spending its entire running time throwing CGI things at the camera, whatever story was set up in the first film has now been shoved aside for a two hour and forty minute, fantasy, tech-demo.

                The plot of this second installment—as it barely exists—continues to follow Bilbo (Martin Freeman) and his merry gang of dwarves, led by the brave but stubborn Thorin (Richard Armitage), as they make their way through the dangerous pockets of Middle Earth on the way to the Lonely Mountain to reclaim their home and treasure from a massive dragon named Smaug (voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch).  On the way, they run into an army of Orks, racist wood elves, and a downtrodden fishing community, ruled by a corrupt master (Stephen Fry). 

                Seems modest enough, right? Well, added in, we also follow the wizard Gandolf (Sir Ian McKellan) as he is sneaking around caves and forests in search of a non-related prophecy, as well as a wooden will-they-or won’t-they, romantic strand dealing with Legolas (Orlando Bloom) and an arrow-wielding elf named Taurial (Evangeline Lilly).  All of these story bits, along with the main journey, struggle for air between a number of bloated, video-game action set-pieces. 

                Despite Jackson stretching this relatively short novel into three separate films by including side-mythology from Tolkien’s other writings, this movie couldn’t be less interested in the story.  Through most of the it the characters are bounced from one set-piece to another with hardly any narrative tissue holding them together.  There are far too many goofy names and magic scrolls and foretold something-or-others to keep up with, and the film’s complete inability to slow down and let the plot breath prevents any of these elements from progressing.  We don’t even have a particular interest in Bilbo’s involvement in the story anymore since the movie continually shifts the center of consciousness, digressing into uninteresting and irrelevant subplots and over designed and aggressively choreographed green-screen action sequences.

                What will inevitably trick audiences into thinking they got what they paid for is the fantastic, well-paced conclusion of the film, involving the dragon Smaug; a completely believable and awe-inspiring CGI creation that steals the entire show. Cumberbatch’s voice is used to good effect here and the scene, unlike the rest of the movie, is based in its characters and their interactions.

                Back in 2005 I would have never called “The Lord of the Rings” series subtle, but compared to these exponentially disappointing Hobbit prequels they now feel like Ken Burns documentaries.  Whereas those films knew how to use their long running-times to build brooding atmosphere and explore the different character dynamics, this movie just feels like being led on a track through a spook house, passing one visual thing after another, in way that seems arbitrary and inconsequential. 

Grade: D+

Originally published in The Idaho State Journal/Dec-2013