A Rather Middling Ending To Middle Earth On The Big Screen

Rating: 5/10 (4 March 2017)

As a fan of all things Middle Earth, I was pumped up to see the conclusion of the film forays into Tolkien's universe. I absolutely loved the LOTR trilogy, as well as the first two Hobbit installments. Though I did not like the decision to split the small-ish book into three long films, a selfish part of me was kind of glad that I would have three more opportunities to see this franchise in theaters. Unfortunately, "Battle of the Five Armies" ran out of really good material to cover, and it showed.
In this film, we see the dragon Smaug descending upon Lake-town in a fury, having discovered that his hoard of gold has been infiltrated by Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman). Bard (Luke Evans), the protector of Lake-town, discovers the "chink in Smaug's armor" and puts an end to the dragon's reign. With a pile of treasure now ripe for the taking, the Battle of the Five Armies begins, primarily egged on by Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitage), who has a sort of "dragon treasure fever" take hold of him.
The main problem with this movie is that Tolkien's "Battle of the Five Armies" isn't enough to make an entire movie out of. Going by the text itself, I believe it only constitutes about 50 or so pages! It seems as if director Peter Jackson got a little battle-happy, as posturing for battles and the battles themselves constitute a great portion of the film. Perhaps, however, that was almost required because of the trilogy of films (what else could you have the characters do?).
I think what really got exposed here is that "The Hobbit" isn't (and never was meant to be) a story about battles. The LOTR book trilogy is an epic, to be sure, but "Hobbit" is much more of a children's tale, full of fun and frivolity. It has its serious, canon moments to be sure, but it is a very simple tale compared to LOTR. The first two Hobbit films actually do a really good job of re- creating that levity while still maintain an LOTR-esque sense of gravitas. In "Five Armies", though, the subject material left over is all about posturing, speeches, and battles. What was meant (and rightly so) as a somewhat speedy (yet logical) completion of the book cannot sustain a two and a half hour film.
There are subplots involving Gandalf the Grey (Ian McKellen), Legolas (Orlando Bloom), Tauriel (Evangeline Lily), and Galadriel (Cate Blanchett), but I found that material to be quite lackluster as well. It tries to set up the events of "Fellowship of the Ring" in a prequel-esque sort of way, but I never really felt that sense of "oh, that's cool!" at all. Again, probably because such scenes are not in the Hobbit novel and thus don't feel quite right.
All that being said, this isn't a terrible movie. Jackson still has his directing touch, the battles are visually impressive, and the music/atmosphere is always so distinctly Middle Earth that one cannot help but be transported into that universe, if you will. Howard Shore's incredible music helps too.
Overall, though, after about 20 minutes into the film when Smaug breathes his last, it becomes unnecessarily (though necessary to sustain an entire third part) bloated and overplayed. It's too bad that one of the greatest book-to-film translations of all-time has to go out on just an "okay" note.