This is - unfortunately - the next chapter in Middle Earth's cinematic history. If you liked Lord of the Rings, you will not like this. If you DIDN'T like Lord of the Rings...oh boy, you are going to hate this.
An Unexpected Journey
In which someone makes the mistake of saying "I do believe the worst is behind us" when there's two movies left
When I sat down to re-watch this trilogy in 2019, the only other time I had watched the first film was when it had been in theatres. I remember back then being both pleased and disappointed in the film, and that’s exactly how it felt the second time around. On one hand, it felt great to be back in the world of Middle Earth. The Lord of the Rings is probably the greatest film trilogy that’s ever been made, so to revisit its setting was something I remember really looking forward to. On the other hand, this film also felt like watching an Olympic skater perform well after their prime days have passed. The skater’s skill and form are of course impeccable, but the performance is sprinkled with missteps and uncomfortable moments that make you remember how good they used to be.
Leaving the negatives aside for a moment, let’s take a second to recognize how perfectly Martin Freeman nailed the role of Bilbo Baggins. He’s got that Hobbit-kind-of-look to him for starters, but he also does a terrific job of portraying Bilbo as a reluctant, naïve, and simple little fellow caught up in a whirlwind adventure. The thing I loved most about Bilbo in the book (I almost typed ‘books’, but then I laughed because this is actually just one book Peter Jackson tore in three pieces) was that so often he thought of home and wished he was back in his own bed, but he continued on the quest anyway. Thankfully, they retained this aspect of his character for the film. He’s instantly lovable, and Freeman’s mannerisms and facial expressions are totally the reason for this. He’s the epitome of the everyman. If you’re looking for a similar performance, check Freeman out in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy where he plays an almost identical role.
I feel like a lot of people have criticized the songs in this film (and I will too in just a second), but I want to make it clear that there was definitely singing in the LOTR trilogy that no one complained about. Songs and musical numbers in these films aren’t inherently a problem – the dwarves singing about the Misty Mountains was really cool, and the scene where they burst into song while in the company of the Elves was lighthearted and fun. When the dwarves sing about the mountains, you feel like it’s a song that they’ve been singing ever since they were cast out of Erebor. It’s a song with deep personal meaning, almost like a hymn that they were taught as children. When they sing a rowdy number amidst the Elves, it feels like a fun little diddy from their homeland. Where I think some of the other songs missed the mark was in their tone and ability to mesh with the feel of Middle Earth. The “Blunted Knives” song feels like it belongs more in the world of Mary Poppins than Gandalf the Grey. It’s a song so specific to the moment that it couldn’t really be an old folk song the dwarves know by heart – it feels more like they’re making it up on the spot, which works in a musical but not in a fantasy adventure like this. Further, the way they’re dancing about with the plates and spoons absolutely defies the laws of physics. Legolas strained credulity from time to time in Lord of the Rings, but I honestly have an easier time believing he could’ve skateboarded down a staircase on an orcish shield than I do believing the dwarves could aggressively elbow plates up into the air without cracking them. The Goblin King’s song also felt out-of-place...more like a cartoon villain’s theme song than a true chilling tune.
Some people might defend these songs by arguing that The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien was written for children, whereas The Lord of the Rings was written for an adult audience. Perhaps Jackson was trying to tap into this when he put this film together. The issue is that it’s easy to move from childish themes to mature ones, but it’s not so easy to do it in reverse. The Harry Potter franchise starts out very whimsically and progresses to darker tones – can you imagine if it started with the darkness of its latter films and then ended up as light as its first? Once Jackson gave us his interpretation of Middle Earth, I don’t think there could’ve been a feasible way to re-contextualize it and make it more kid-friendly. This is a world where Orcs eat each other alive and Shelob sucks people dry, not where wizards with bird poop on their heads race around on sleds pulled by rabbits. That’s more like Narnia than Middle Earth (no offense, C.S. Lewis – you know you’re my favourite).
But hey, we got to see Gollum again, and that was worth at least some of the missteps that Jackson gave us. I think Andy Serkis is tremendously under-appreciated for the work he’s done in the motion capture industry and elsewhere. The scene where Bilbo and Gollum interact plays out exactly as we’d always hoped it would, and it’s a beacon of light in the midst of an otherwise spotty film. All in all, this film will disappoint die-hard fans of Lord of the Rings, but I think there’s enough nuggets of goodness in it to merit a chance.
Oh yeah, and that Goblin King is disgusting. Great job on the character design.
The Desolation of Smaug
In which Benedict Cumberbatch tries to eat Martin Freeman and everyone's okay with this
At this point in my watch-through of the Hobbit trilogy, I started wondering why this wasn’t turned into a limited Netflix series or something along those lines instead of a trio of movies. Whereas the various plot threads of Lord of the Rings all pertain in some way to the Ring and the quest to destroy it, I feel like some of the situations our dwarves find themselves in are difficult to keep rooted in the overarching quest. For example, who cares about Beorn or the leader of Esgaroth? These characters really just felt like fluff. They didn’t contribute to the overarching story at all. Instead of shoving them into a movie they don’t belong in, why not break this whole thing into 8 or so episodes of a series? That way, each episode you can bring the dwarves to a new exciting / dangerous place, introduce a new character, and have that character’s story resolved by the end of the episode in a way that gets our dwarves moving on. I just feel like this trilogy is beginning to buckle under its own weight – which isn’t good considering there’s still one more movie to come.
The spider scene was pretty cool. And for all the ludicrous unbelievability of the barrel scene, I can’t help but love that sequence. It’s just so much fun as the dwarves race down the river, chased by elves and orcs simultaneously. It’s probably the highlight of this film for me. The eventual meeting of Smaug and Bilbo was also charming. Bilbo is quick on his feet and a fast thinker; it’s cool to see him try and match wits with someone easily a hundred times his size. It was also kind of cool seeing Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman acting together in a context different from their hit TV series Sherlock. If you haven’t given that a shot yet, I’d highly recommend it. But aside from them, I feel like most of the characters had far less time to develop themselves. Sure, we got the Kili – Tauriel tension, but their romance seemed a bit rushed and wasn’t wholly believable from the get-go.
I can’t quite put my finger on it, but there’s just something about this film that’s utterly forgettable. When I sat down after “An Unexpected Journey” to write my review, I had a lot to say. When the credits started rolling this time around, I thought to myself, “Okay...what happened? How do I feel about this?” The fact that nothing had really stuck with me is testament to what happens when a good story is spread too thin – like butter over too much bread, as Bilbo would say.
Battle of the Five Armies
In which FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT
This movie is 5% plot resolution and 95% fight scene. It’s hard to say much about the film, because the whole movie is just one extended battle. At the start, there’s a tiny bit of talking as people try to avoid the battle (which obviously isn’t going to happen given the film’s title), and Bilbo’s offering of the Arkenstone was probably the one bit of dramatic tension in the whole film. He’s betraying his friends to save his friends, and putting their fate into the hands of people who don’t even like them. That was pretty neat. But that’s about it.
What’s confusing to me is that I’m not exactly sure what the outcome of the battle was even though I just finished watching the film an hour ago. The five armies were the Dwarves, Elves, Men, and two separate Orc armies. Obviously the Dwarves win, but what happened to the Men? Are they reclaiming Dale, or going back to Esgaroth? Did I miss the bit where they named a new leader? Is Bard the boss now? Cause I don’t remember a scene where his character arc had any meaningful resolution. The Elves went home – that part I remember. But why did they stop fighting against the Dwarves? The Dwarves and Elves start this movie off by trading blows. The only thing that stops them is the arrival of the orcs. Once the orcs are gone, wouldn’t the elves go back to fighting the Dwarves? And for that matter, wouldn’t the Men do likewise? I thought the Elves were here to reclaim a special necklace thing. Did they get it back, or what?
And what happened to the orc armies? I know that Azog and Bolg got killed, but that doesn’t mean their armies would just collapse. I don’t remember seeing the orcs break ranks and run for the hills, and I certainly don’t remember the orcs being finished off by the Dwarf-Elf armies. Speaking of which, by the time Lord of the Rings comes out, Dwarves and Elves are still icy towards each other. If the Elves helped the Dwarves reclaim Erebor (and it certainly looks like they did), wouldn’t Gimli be a bit more sympathetic towards Elves?
And HEY, you can’t just expect me to be okay with the mind-blowing levels of ridiculosity (that’s not a word but it’s the only thing that works) that Legolas pulls off in this film. The bit where he’s hanging upside down on a flying bat slicing orc heads off with a sword in each hand is crazy enough, but THEN he literally climbs up a collapsing floor, each step on a piece that’s already in midair. This is stupid! I would’ve laughed at this if it happened in a video game, but it’s just annoying in a movie.
This trilogy is an utter disappointment in every sense of the word compared to Jackson’s The Lord of The Rings. Of course, Jackson set a very high standard for himself, but this doesn’t even come close. In a word, this trilogy is bloated. It should’ve been so much shorter. Thank heavens that I’m watching LOTR next – I need a pick-me-up.
I should add that before I got into the Lord of the Rings, I decided to give the Appendices a shot. I started with the behind-the-scenes content for “An Unexpected Journey”. Although there were definitely parts that were very interesting (I’m a sucker for practical effects), even the bonus features seemed to suffer the same problem that the films themselves did. For the first film alone, there are three discs of bonus material – each disc loaded up with 2.5 – 3 hours of behind-the-scenes footage. While the individual segments were fine in and of themselves, the sheer volume made the whole thing seem overly long and arduous. The third disc in particular felt exhausting, because it started re-treading a lot of ground that the first two discs had already covered.
More heartbreaking than the length was having to watch Peter Jackson make all these creative decisions that I disagreed with. One of my biggest gripes with this trilogy is that Jackson resorted to CGI when he should’ve relied more heavily on practical effects like he did with LOTR. An animatronic oliphaunt may not have been feasible in the original trilogy, and that’s fine - but one of the great strengths of those films is how terrifying and believable the orcs and goblins were as a result of the practical effects. In the behind-the-scenes here, I had to sit and watch as stunning practical costumes were constructed for all sorts of creatures, only to have them eventually rejected by Jackson in favour of CGI monsters. In my opinion, as soon as your audience knows something is CGI, they cease to fear it. It can’t be scary if they’re constantly aware of the man behind the curtain.
Instead of watching the next six discs of bonus content and however many hours that would have taken, I elected to move on to the trilogy that made this one possible. Take my word for it – don’t watch the Appendices.