The End of a Journey

Rating: 9/10 (16 December 2014)

To set the scene, Smaug has been awoken and has Lake Town firmly in his sights. Whilst he char grills the town, the dwarfs watch on anxiously, with Bilbo's final, desperate monologue of "What have we done?" from The Desolation of Smaug becoming a visible nightmare. The Dragon is dealt with and all eyes turn to the mountain. The Dwarfs, led by Thorin, seek to hold onto their newly claimed home, yet every man and his proverbial dog, horse, warg, ludicrous Elk (King Thranduil), or even more ridiculous Pig (King Dain) want a share of the gold. Thus tensions bubble up to explosion on the battlefield as Men, Dwarfs and Elves take on the Orc and Warg ridden armies of Sauron.
As we can expect, the action scenes are sprawling and magnificent to behold, but it is much more than a bombastic war movie, and here's where I think the strengths lie. The power of Jackson is that amidst the whole scale destruction there is always a humanity present, a sense of helplessness and the feeling that the stories are more to do with character arcs and development than just meaningless blood-shed. We all love the action scenes, and they're the ones we wax lyrical about when we come out of the cinema, yet in this film in particular, the anchor to the plot is the story of Thorin. Richard Armitage simply plays a blinder in this film, stealing the lime light from the once again excellent Bilbo and the thoroughly impressive Bard. This is an arc within a arc; the descent into madness then the redemption of a dwarf who will not fall to the same dragon sickness as his grandfather. But this isn't some hammy Shakespearean actor reeling off their best Richard III impression, this is much more persuasive and powerful stuff.
Further positives include the desolation of Smaug in full force. Cumberbatch's serpentine tones leave you transfixed and wanting more. Indeed, it's a shame that he's dispatched so quickly, yet the reality is that there wasn't any way that they could have conceivably stretched it out anymore, so it becomes a hollow criticism. As I mentioned, Bard is brilliant as the reluctant King of Lake Town and the arrival of King Dain – a ridiculously CGI-ed Billy Connolly – offers genuine comedic rest bite from what can be a pretty grim two and a half hours.
On the point of CGI, here's where my gripes start. The tone of the film is meant to be different to LOTR, this I appreciate; the source material is lighter so it makes sense to make the baddies more mythic. But I think that this tonal shift at times undercuts the peril of the action. For example, Bard gets a pretty epic, legolas-worthy spate of badassery where he kills a troll, yet the Troll looks more like Wayne Rooney than a terrifying creature meant to strike fear into your hearts. Moreover I think that the decision to make Azog and Bolg mo-capped as opposed to genuine physical presences undermines their on screen presence. The most visceral battle scenes, in my opinion, are in Dale when Bard leads the beleaguered men of the Lake against blokes dressed up as Orcs, not coming from an admittedly very impressive computer.
A point of both praise and criticism is that the film seems acutely aware that it needs to give nods to, and in some ways emulate, LOTR. In some ways it's really good to see, such as the size of the battles and the cinematic deaths of some characters instantly creating a stylistic flashback to Boromir in the Fellowship. Finally Bard is a pseudo Aragorn in the sense that he is the reluctant leader of men. These are subtle cinematic nods. But I think the plot strands can be slightly shoe-horned in. For example, the forbidden love of Tauriel and Kili smacks of the relationship between Aragorn and Arwen. Also, the final dialogue between Thranduil and Legolas tries to create a tangible link between the trilogies, but just feels a bit forced.
All of this aside, and I think that it is triumphant. Both characters old and new come together to create a rousing couple of hours of entertainment. The old band is given their curtain call – Saruman, Galadriel, Elrond etc. Whilst the new characters deservedly become an appreciated part of the canon. Thranduil is chilling, Tauriel is moving (and I fell in love with her again), Bard is bold, the dwarfs are given more to say and Bilbo and Thorin steer the ship. It is imperfect, but every film is. When you put it amongst the other 5 films it doesn't stand out in a negative way, indeed the battle scenes rival the Return of the King in terms of scope. This is as shining an endorsement as any.