Stuart:

Now that Jackson’s second Middle Earth trilogy is complete, I can safely say that The Hobbit should have stayed as the originally-planned two movies. The Battle of the Five Armies is, on the whole, more enjoyable than The Desolation of Smaug, but it feels like a film that’s been padded out to fill the 144 minute running time.

I’m glad that Viggo Mortensen recently stated that he thought Fellowship was the best of the Lord of the Rings films, because I seemed to be one of the few people who felt that way. He cited unfinished scripts and multiple reshoots as the reasons why the second and third films weren’t quite as satisfying, something which has been apparent with this trilogy too. I really loved An Unexpected Journey, but part two and three are sloppy – if entertaining – pieces of filmmaking. The Battle of the Five Armies picks up moments after The Desolation of Smaug ended, with the dragon cutting sick on Lake-town. I have no idea why they didn’t keep this portion of the film at the end of the second instalment, because it’s all over pretty quickly. The real narrative kicks in once everyone in Middle Earth realise that the dwarves have retaken the mountain and there’s a shedload of gold ripe for the retaking. Before you can say “It’s all about the Benjamins,” everyone’s clamouring for their share.

Then, true to the title, the film focusses on the gathering of multiple armies and their super-maxi-epic clash. Said battle is an exercise in excess, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy it. The action soon is broken down into multiple little skirmishes, something which I always prefer to the large-scale, wideshot stuff of thousands going head to head.

The visual effects are great, even if we can occasionally spot the ‘strings’. Seeing the film in high frame rate does mean that the CGI looks brilliant, however it still doesn’t feel like production crews are used to working with the format. The lighting – particularly during obvious greenscreen scenes – and the sets look strange, and it seems that set designers, lighting technicians and cinematographers haven’t come up with new methods to accommodate the high frame rate. That being said, I still believe HFR is the way you should watch The Hobbit films, if only because that’s the way Jackson intended them to be seen.

There are some brilliant dramatic beats here, and Jackson can still direct emotional moments with directorial punch. Unfortunately, we also have scenes that stick out like a sore thumb. One particular sub-plot concerning the deputy mayor is most unwelcome, and almost certainly added subsequent to principal photography. Consistently cringe-worthy, this distraction adds absolutely nothing to the story.

Once the battle begins, the action is relentless. I found it more exciting than the whole “let’s cover Smaug in molten metal” bit from the last film, something which I knew was never going to work anyway, because at least I didn’t know what the outcome would be this time around.

An exercise in excess, The Battle of the Five Armies won’t change your mind about The Hobbit films. I much prefer Jackson’s output when his scripts are actually locked down in time for the film to be shot. All that’s left to do now is play a round of, “Let’s guess which role would have gone to Ron Perlman if Guillermo del Toro had directed these films as originally planned.”