Is this the final, for-real ending of the ongoing cash cow that the collected works of J.R.R. Tolkien has been for whatever’s left of New Line Cinema and whatever’s left of director Peter Jackson? [I have a theory that the real Peter Jackson actually died five years ago, and they just found a Santa personator at the mall to pretend to be him to keep these franchises going.]
It’s a pretty good movie, but I found myself more tired than ever of this franchise’s tendency to drag things out. Could “The Hobbit” have been just one movie? Sure. Could it have been just two? No question about it, and it probably should have been. And here comes this third movie that is really just an extended battle sequence (the titular Battle of the Five Armies). I was a bigger fan of the second film. It just seemed a little more fun and less predictable, and Benedict Cumberpatch’s Smaug is sorely missed.
What Works: The movie opens with what the second movie should have closed with and that’s Smaug the Dragon’s rampage on the people of Laketown. Once that’s over it’s all about a battle between dwarfs, elves, humans, and orcs (forgive my ignorance Tolkein-ites but I’m not sure what the fifth army is or who it’s made up of), which equals at least half the movie’s run time, but that winds up being a little less fun than it sounds.
What Doesn’t: Richard Armitage’s dwarf king keeps up his tradition of sucking, as there seems to be scene after scene of him basically being a huge jerk or outright useless. You keep wondering why all the other characters put so much faith in his leadership.
What I Would Have Done Differently: I would have put this film’s opening scene at the ending of the second film, but that also would have made this film slightly worse so maybe that’s not such a good idea. Of course, it’s not such a good idea that a third Hobbit film exists at all, but it’s making money so nobody cares.