"Very terrible"

Rating: 2/10 (12 February 2016)

In December 2003, a generation wept, heartbroken from saying goodbye to the beloved realm of Middle-Earth, which had redefined cinematic potential and captured their hearts for three consecutive years. In December 2014, they wept again – this time from the bitter relief that the embarrassing, bloated, fecal cash-cow zombification calling itself The Hobbit was finally putting itself out of their collective misery. But Hobbit III (a sentence retch-worthy in itself) didn't go down quietly. The Battle of the Five Armies is more drunken fart than film – a gaudy, criminally soulless, grossly excessive, abrasively stupid waste of time and space, and a final spit in the face of Jackson's timeless Lord of the Rings legacy. And you thought Morgul blades were painful.
If there's any whiff of sense to be found in this reeking pile of troll dung, it lies in its mid-film tangent involving Dwarf King Thorin's descent into "dragon sickness." Wandering the halls of his barren mountain fortress, murmuring dementedly while idly fumbling pieces of gold, and eventually hallucinating being swallowed up by the floor melting into a noxious puddle of golden goo (one of the film's idly engaging sequences), Thorin , intentionally or not, provides a pristine metaphor for Peter Jackson, drowning in his (and New Line's) gluttonous financial folly. In terms of profundity – heck, even quality – that's it, though. And I mean IT. After a jarring opening of Cumberbatch's Smaug torching Lake Town, yet another prospectively cool sequence marred by abominably stupid Benny Hill chase choreography, Jackson settles in for an abominable sludge of "tension" (aka: stalling). If, by tension, we mean our universally dull characters repetitively braying inane lines at one another in a facsimile of military strategy filtered through despicable preschool social politics. For a change of pace, "comedic relief" is provided by Lake Town's insufferable unibrowed asshat (I refuse to learn his name; it's more attention than he deserves) making not one. Not two. But three crass drag jokes with a Monty Python 'lady voice.' Yes, this is what $250 million went towards.
Another interlude has the stunt doubles of Cate Blanchett, Hugo Weaving, and poor Christopher Lee blandly waving at the CGI apparition of a Sauron who looked more credible in 2001 (and if you think this is insultingly blatant LOTR "universe-building", just wait until the film's conclusion). Meanwhile, snoring Lee Pace rides a CGI moose in circles as Luke Evans' Bored-sorry-Bard and Thorin frown at each other through a hole in the wall in a sequence undoubtedly meant to be nail-biting, but is instead accidentally hilarious. And then, as if exhausted by all this (in)action, Jackson makes us wait. Again.
But don't worry – you'll get your battle. And therein you'll discover yet another level of disappointment, as the blurry cacophony of CGI blobs crashing into other CGI blobs proves even more boring than the waiting – just with more noise. Thrill, as nearly an hour of intolerable din manages to continually get worse. And worse. And worse. If there's an action cliché Jackson failed to throw in to this pukestew, you probably just missed it taking place in the background somewhere behind the bleating of a terrifyingly plasticine CGI Billy Connolly and the two interchangeable bad orc blobs providing dull play-by-plays like a rubbery Statler and Waldorf. See: Jackson hammer the "hero whisks in at the last minute to save a comrade from mortal peril" button roughly 5000 times (that's barely hyperbole). See: gratuitously overused Legolas auditioning for Wicked by defyyyyyyyying gravity, hopping up a crumbling wall like an 8-bit Super Mario ripoff. See: Jackson's Tremors ripoff giant worms be momentarily cool, before, naturally, disappearing with no explanation. See: the one unexpectedly clever and hilarious moment in the thoroughly unanticipated Thorin vs. Azog showdown be entirely marred by yet another "oh no! he's not dead" comeback so telegraphed it redefines the word "insulting." Meanwhile, as our heroes toddle around bumping into the abominable results of Weta's creature designers getting bored (my favourite: a four-peg-legged behemoth I unaffectionately dubbed "Pogo Troll"), we cover our ears, grimacing with sheer loathing, as we await the deus-eagles-machina to make the suffering stop.
Oh – did I forget to take a pot-shot at the worst cinematic love story of the century (keeping in mind this is a century that's produced Twilight, 50 Shades of Grey, and "Brutasha")? I did? Well, um it's still really, really awful. Sorry. I'd be wittier, but I think Pogo Troll kicked out the last two brain cells I had left.
Martin Freeman and Ian McKellen try. Oh lord, they try. But they're inexcusably saddled to supporting characters in their own movie, while we instead fret away with dwarfs whose hairstyles we've been leering at for eight and a half hours, but still don't know the names or personalities of (I'd point out that in Lord of the Rings Jackson established characters within 1-2 sentences, but you knew that already). If you needed more reasons to despise this film, just remember that the shoot isolated Ian McKellen amongst so many green screens that he literally broke down and sobbed in despair. That's right – Peter Jackson made Gandalf cry. Let the hate flow through you.
But then: Billy Boyd's gorgeous voice brings us out of the darkness, and reminds us of the beauty that once was Middle-Earth. No, you're crying.
If Jackson intended his third Hobbit as a surreal, scathing piece of performance art, exploring just how bad a film can be while still earning unbelievable amounts of money, he's a perverse genius. Otherwise, there aren't enough negative adjectives in the world to properly describe its filth. You'd think this kind of flagrant, campy mess could find triumph as an ironic cult classic, but it's too abrasively preening to even hate-watch without disdain overruling. Ultimately, Tolkien himself pre-emptively provided the film's perfect epitaph: "It was called the Battle of the Five Armies, and it was very terrible."
-2/10