Release date (India):
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December 12, 2014
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Director:
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Peter Jackson
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Cast:
Language:
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Most people who
were in the earlier Hobbit films & some from the LOTR series
English
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The
final Hobbit film in Peter Jackson’s
second Tolkien trilogy is a magnificent spectacle. It is also a magnificent bore.
The
special effects and camerawork are impeccable no doubt, but after a point –
with a handful of exceptional sequences – all that it is is more of what we’ve
already seen ever since Jackson released his first film in The Lord Of The Rings (LOTR) trilogy in 2001. I mean, how many
more times will we gasp at those same mythical creatures with a few additions per film, those panoramic views of breathtaking natural scenery, those
spectacular kingdoms, the dragon Smaug from the last film, the rivers of gold stashed
away in the innards of a mountain? We get it, Mr Jackson – you are a king of
visual wonderment. We get it too that you are in love with J.R.R. Tolkien’s
books. Now stop it, please. Unless you can show us something vastly different
to the eye from what’s gone before, do get back to telling us a story, please.
For
the very few people left in this world coming in late on this, The Hobbit: The Battle Of The Five Armies
is the third film Jackson has derived from Tolkien’s fantasy novel The Hobbit, first published almost a
century back. This book was the precursor to Tolkien’s LOTR trilogy, which was made into three films by Jackson before he
began exploring The Hobbit in three
parts (The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey,
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug and this latest film, The Hobbit: The Battle Of The Five Armies).
Ergo, Jackson has worked in reverse order with this.
The Battle Of The Five Armies begins
with Smaug attacking the humans of Lake Town to punish them for giving refuge
to the dwarves. Bard attacks the marauding creature and takes off with his people
to claim the share promised to them by the dwarves from the treasure of the
Lonely Mountain, so that they can rebuild their lives. Whatever little is left
of the plot is geared towards gathering armies of orcs, elves, dwarves and
humans at the mountain for that one final clash of the title.
After
the initial set-up for the battle, there’s little by way of story or narrative
depth, and the battle is painfully stretched. It goes without saying that the special effects are of high quality
(C’mon, that’s a given! This is Peter Jackson we’re talking about!) but most of
it has been recycled from the earlier films and there’s little here that’s
conceptually innovative and exclusive to this particular production.
It
starts with promise though. The deadly Smaug is far more effectively explored
here than in the second Hobbit film. The initial scenes of the dragon raining
fire on Lake Town are heart-stoppingly beautiful and handled with a difference.
There’s another lovely scene during the battle when a massive stone structure
is collapsing, and the elf Legolas uses the falling rocks as a stairway-like
bridge across a chasm, stepping on each one just in the nick of time before it
descends too far down. And during a hand-to-hand fight on thin ice between the
dwarf king Thorin Oakenshield and Azog, there is thought invested in that one
moment designed to make the audience chuckle and go, “Oh, I didn’t think of
that.”
Three
sequences in an entire two-and-a-half hour film, the familiar strains of Howard
Shore’s lovely background score which remains elevating and a mood song playing
over the end credits ain’t enough though to justify the existence of the film
for any reason other than the fact that Tolkien’s classics are bestsellers even
today, that the LOTR trilogy was an
international money-spinner and that the Tolkien-Jackson brand value is expected to make even this one a box-office success. Those are calculations that
corporate honchos make with all eyes on bottomlines and balance sheets – I have
no argument with them.
My
argument is with the film maker in Peter Jackson. With him, the bottomline is this:
there is nothing in The Hobbit: The
Battle Of The Five Armies that explains why these three Hobbit films could not have been
condensed into a single, incredibly fantastical, richly imagined film.
Rating (out of five): **
CBFC Rating (India):
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U/A
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Running time:
MPAA Rating (US):
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147 minutes
PG-13 (for extended sequences of intense
fantasy action violence, and frightening images)
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Release date in the US:
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December 17, 2014
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