The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

After 13 years, 6 films and countless dead orcs, Peter Jackson's visa in Middle Earth has come to an end. And what a gap year it has been. Many will have grown up with Jackson's films or, at least, have read the book which started it all off: J. R. R. Tolkein's The Hobbit. For some, Jackson got a little carried away in his turning of 350 pages of text into 8 hours of film but the last filmic foray into Middle Earth is confident, engaging and impassioned film making.

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies kicks off right in the middle of the action which we left in film two, The Desolation of Smaug. The angry dragon (voiced by the man of the moment, Benedict Cumberbatch) is still angry and raining fire down on the poor people of Laketown. The dwarves and Bilbo are still hanging around on the slopes of the Lonely Mountain, watching the unfolding drama and Gandalf is still hanging around (quite literally) at Dol Guldur, where Ringwraiths and Sauron make a threatening appearance.

If you haven't seen the previous two films, this all may seem a bit confusing. However, The Battle of the Five Armies does a good job of getting everyone back up-to-speed fairly rapidly. And this is one thing that the film does well: it romps along, quite unlike the first film, and (as the title would suggest) there's a lot of fighting. A lot. Indeed, the end battle sequence runs to some 40 minutes and beats the audience into submission. But the fighting is well-choreographed, exhilarating and the ranks and ranks beautifully-armoured elven soldiers will make even the most faint of Tolkien fans smile with joy. Jackson has again used the technical wizardry which was pioneered in The Lord of the Rings and the resulting battle sequences are very impressive.

The downside to these extended battle scenes is that the emotion of the narrative is sometimes lost, and the multitude of characters, together with their stories, are swamped under the weight of swords, breast plates and war cries. This has, for some critics, been a fundamental problem with the film: that the spectacle suffocates any true meaning in the film and that the film's plot rather is anaemic. I disagree as this film is the culmination of the previous two films' narratives and deserves to be all-singing and all-dancing. To go out without a bang would have been very dissatisfying.

Martin Freeman shines again as Bilbo, having perfected his quizzical look and character integrity and it is with genuine affection and warmth that characters from The Lord of the Rings make a return. Ian McKellen is Gandalf. No doubt about it. And it was nice to see the return of Cate Blanchett, Hugo Weaving and Christopher Lee. The “new” cast – mostly men and dwarves – also gave good performances and Richard Armitage's Thorin was quasi-Shakespearean. Billy Connolly even makes an appearance.

One of the most impressive things about The Battle of the Five Armies is the way it paves the way for The Lord of the Rings. The heartbeats of fans will be set racing when Legolas is sent at the end of the film to track down “the one they call Strider” and the film's close offers a definite, pleasing conclusion (Peter Jackson has certainly learnt from his mistakes with the never-ending endings The Lord of the Rings trilogy).

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies is a very enjoyable and satisfying film which appropriately concludes Jackson's time in Middle Earth. The film – and, indeed, the trilogy, doesn't have the weight or emotional punch of The Lord of the Rings but Jackson plainly cares deeply about the world of The Hobbit and the sincerity with which the films are approached has to be admired. The film is visually-spectacular and narratively-troubled, but I can forgive it almost anything. The chance to revisit the characters and the world of Tolkein, one last time, is not to be missed.

Clapperboard Rating: * * * *