‘The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies’ Reviewed

Remember how, in middle school, you used double-spacing and wider margins to stretch out your five-paragraph book report to the required three pages, thinking you were fooling your teacher? That’s pretty much what Peter Jackson has done — albeit on a far grander scale — in his Hobbit trilogy.

 The third film in this bloated adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s beloved children’s story picks up where The Desolation of Smaug left off, with the iconic fire drake laying waste to Lake-town and Bard the Bowman (Luke Evans) saving the day. But the dragon’s defeat only creates more problems for Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman) and the company of Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitage), as the titular armies converge on the Lonely Mountain for a massive showdown full of orcs, humans, elves, dwarves, trolls and a wide array of CGI beasts.

Since so much of the Hobbit story has already been told in the previous films — along with a whole lot of additional material added by Jackson to pad out the running time — there’s not much to this final film aside from large-scale battle sequences, but the moments that aren’t focused on fighting are largely forgettable. We see Thorin suffer from “dragon sickness” as the gold hoards within Erebor poison his mind, we see the White Council rescue Gandalf (Sir Ian McKellan) from Dol Guldur and we get more of the superfluous interspecies love story between Kili (Aidan Turner) and Tauriel (Evangeline Lilly). There’s also an abundance of scenes featuring a character named Alfrid Lickspittle (Ryan Gage), who’s just the worst ever.

The Battle of the Five Armies is a far more satisfying experience than the meandering Desolation of Smaug, but Jackson’s presumably final jaunt in Middle-earth too often feels like a video game cutscene. The battles lack the weight of those in the Lord of the Rings trilogy and are, unfortunately, lengthy to the point of exhaustion. Still, at a relatively brisk 144 minutes, it’s the most entertaining film in the trilogy.

 As much as I loved the original Lord of the Rings films — I still have the light-up Burger King goblets to prove it — I can’t help but feel that there was a superior adaptation of The Hobbit in the works before someone got the idea that a three-hundred page children’s book needed to be a three-film, eight-hour war epic. I’d much rather see that movie.

Bilbo Baggins Slays Orcs, Emcees in 'Misty Mountains Rap'

The Warp Zone has transformed the “Misty Mountains” song from The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey into a pretty fun rap video, and I discovered it at the right time. I’ve had Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas” stuck in my head for the last three days, and this new earworm has subdued my urge to knock myself unconscious with the nearest Yule Log. It’s a Christmas miracle!

Watch Thorin Oakenshield, Bilbo Baggins, Legolas and Gandalf spit rhymes below and, if you haven’t already, check out my review of The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug by clicking here.

‘The Desolation of Smaug’ Blows Smoke

Bloated, overwrought and needlessly busy, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug provides 161 minutes of additional proof that Peter Jackson is in dire need of more discerning editor. Though far more entertaining than An Unexpected Journey — the first installment of the film trilogy based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s landmark children’s tome — Smaug often buckles under its own ambitions, deluded into thinking that bigger is always better. Much like Bilbo Baggins himself in his later years, this film feels like “butter scraped over too much bread,” and it ultimately isn’t all that appetizing.

The Desolation of Smaug picks up shortly after the conclusion of the previous film, with Bilbo — played spectacularly by Martin Freeman — accompanying a group of Dwarves led by Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitage) to the lost Dwarf city of Erebor, where the titular dragon slumbers. But before they contend with that fire-breathing menace, the group encounters spiders, Elf warriors and legions of snarling Orcs. As the Dwarves fight to reclaim their home under the Lonely Mountain, Gandalf (Sir Ian McKellan) is drawn to the East, where an ancient and malevolent force threatens all of Middle-earth.

Since The Hobbit is a relatively brief novel compared to the sprawling Lord of the Rings epic, some padding was necessary for Jackson to craft what amounts to nine-hours of screen time. As such, Smaug introduces characters and situations that were not part of Tolkien’s original story. Orlando Bloom reprises his role as Legolas, a character who did not interact with Bilbo & Co. in the original story, while Lost star Evangeline Lily plays Tauriel, a a Mirkwood Elf created solely for the movie adaptation. Purists might balk at Tauriel’s inclusion in this version of the story, but she brings to the film a welcome female presence. Her romance with Kili the Dwarf (Aiden Turner) is a bit forced, but it’s also a welcome emotional hook in a film that has a tendency to devolve into a non-interactive video game cutscene.

Indeed, there’s far more action in this outing than its predecessor but, much like the first film’s ludicrous chase through Goblin-town, most of the battle sequences come dangerously close to being goofy. In fact, it never even appears as though any of the heroic characters are in danger during even the most harrowing scenes. When your protagonists are effortlessly fending off legions of CGI monsters while simultaneously defying the laws of physics, even the most dazzling of set pieces can become a chore to sit through … even in 3D.

Despite its flaws, The Desolation of Smaug isn’t a total disappointment. Smaug (voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch) is a technical marvel, and there are several moments in the film that remind us why we first fell in love with Jackson’s vision of Middle-earth twelve years ago. However, as both an adaptation of a beloved classic and as a prequel trilogy to The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit seems to be falling short thus far. Let’s hope for redemption when There and Back Again hits theaters next year.

Spiders, Orcs and Explosions Abound in New ‘Hobbit’ Trailer

For whatever reason, I’m not exactly clamoring for the next installment in Peter Jackson’s Hobbit trilogy. Maybe it’s because I’m not really sure J.R.R. Tolkien’s original story needed to be told over three films, or perhaps there are so many huge movies coming out in the next few months, namely Thor: The Dark World, that the next Hobbit film just isn’t registering on my radar like it should.

That being said, this new trailer for The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug is pretty darn cool, showing us glimpses of the dwarves battling the horrors of Mirkwood and Bilbo Baggins’ encounter with Smaug inside the Lonely Mountain.

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug hits theaters Dec. 13.

How Are You Celebrating 'Hobbit Day'?

If you’re a hardcore J.R.R. Tolkien geek, you might be aware that Sept. 22 is kind of a big deal. It’s the day in which Frodo and Bilbo Baggins celebrate their birthday, an event that kicks off the Lord of the Rings trilogy in both the original text and Peter Jackson’s films.

So how will you mark the occasion? You might want to start a Lord of the Rings movie marathon, or maybe you’ll re-read the epic story in its entirety, beginning with The Hobbit. You could even kick back all day and partake in some Longbottom Leaf passages of The Silmarillion.

Yet, perhaps the purest way to honor the spirit of The Lord of the Rings today is to embark on an unexpected journey, whatever that may be. Because as Tolkien himself wrote, “Still round the corner there may wait, a new road or a secret gate.”

First Look at Bilbo Baggins in ‘The Desolation of Smaug’

 In a move that tells fans absolutely nothing we don’t already know about Peter Jackson’s next Hobbit film — but nevertheless sends us into a speculative frenzy — the trilogy’s official Facebook page released this first look at Martin Freeman’s Bilbo Baggins from The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, slated to hit theaters Dec. 13, 2013.

In the photo, Bilbo is wearing some fancy new duds on a massive pile of gold, no doubt during his confrontation with the dragon Smaug within the Lonely Mountain. Bilbo could also be doing his Scrooge McDuck impression, but I don’t remember that from the book.

Three Reasons to Love ‘The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey’

 It shouldn’t be all that much of a surprise that, yes, I really enjoyed the first film in Peter Jackson’s Hobbit trilogy. But rather than bore you with a long-winded and hyperbolic explanation as to why An Unexpected Journey is worth your cash this holiday season, here are three reasons why you geeks out there should see it in theaters, whether in 3D, 48 FPS or otherwise.

1)  Martin Freeman is a perfect Bilbo Baggins
Before The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, I admittedly knew very little about the work of Martin Freeman, save for his starring role in the middling 2005 film adaptation of Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Now that I’ve seen him as Bilbo Baggins, I can’t picture anyone else playing the overly cautious son of Belladonna Took. He captures Bilbo’s polite outrage incredibly well at the beginning of the film as the dwarves invade his pantry, and his transformation to unlikely action hero during the film’s climax is pretty convincing (even if it is a bit abrupt). On top of all that, Freeman even looks at times like a young Ian Holm, who plays the older Bilbo in the Lord of the Rings films and the prologue to An Unexpected Journey.

2) The Riddle Game sequence lives up to expectations
The entire Lord of the Rings saga hinges on Bilbo’s discovery of The One Ring and the ensuing Riddle Game with its previous bearer, Gollum, so it’s only appropriate that the fifth chapter of The Hobbit is among Tolkienites’ favorite pieces of the lore. Fortunately, Peter Jackson is one such Tolkienite, and made Bilbo’s tense battle of wits as creepy in this film as we all imagined it would be. Kudos to the Weta Team (and returning actor Andy Serkis) for reminding us why Gollum is one of modern cinema’s finest digital creations.

3)  The Hobbit films are better Lord of the Rings prequels than the book
This isn’t a knock on J.R.R. Tolkien’s 1937 novel, but the original children’s story was never really intended to be a prelude to the far more epic story that would be its sequel, The Lord of the Rings. In fact, the author went back and rewrote portions of the book’s fifth chapter “Riddles in the Dark” (which features the aforementioned Riddle Game), to better match up with the The Lord of the Rings, and Tolkien allegedly intended at one point to rewrite The Hobbit entirely as a more serious story to supplement Bilbo’s more childish retelling of his Lonely Mountain adventure.

Since that never happened, Jackson was tasked with making The Hobbit “fit” with the mythology established in the previous films. As a result, many of the darker elements of the story are tied more directly to the imminent return of Sauron, and portions of Middle Earth’s history are culled from Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings appendices and supplemental writings. Making the story feel “bigger” not only serves to connect The Hobbit with The Lord of the Rings (which benefits fans), but also allows the story to be spread over three films (which benefits the studios).

So, there you have it! If you disagree with any of the points made here, let me know on Twitter by following me @JamesWortman.

Stephen Colbert Talks Tolkien with ‘Hobbit’ Director Peter Jackson

Most geeks are feverishly anticipating the Friday release of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, including Comedy Central political satirist Stephen Colbert. On the Dec. 6 edition of The Colbert Report, Colbert — who has already seen the first installment of the Hobbit trilogy — had a geekified discussion with Jackson about all things J.R.R. Tolkien, including the author’s retconning of certain events in his 1937 children’s fantasy novel The Hobbit after the completion of The Lord of the Rings and the author’s abandoned plans to rewrite The Hobbit entirely.

Check out the video below, and be sure to pre-order your tickets before The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey hits theaters this weekend.

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
The Pundit: Or Colbert and Back Again - Hobbit Week Night Four
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Peter Jackson’s ‘The Hobbit’ to be Split into Trilogy

 I know I’m probably the last person to comment on this, but I’ve just learned that Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit has gone from a two-part Lord of the Rings prequel to a full-on trilogy. I can’t say I’m surprised by this news – there’s money to be made in telling the story across three films – but I’m also concerned that the “unexpected journey” of Bilbo and his dwarven buddies just isn’t robust enough for a trilogy on the scale of The Lord of the Rings.

Jackson broke this news on his official Facebook page on Monday, confirming speculation that Warner Bros. and MGM were interested in a Hobbit trilogy. Quoting J.R.R. Tolkien himself, Jackson noted that The Hobbit is “a tale that grew in the telling.” Let’s hope it grew for the right reasons.

Orlando Bloom Confirmed for 'The Hobbit'

Although we've already heard rumblings that Orlando Bloom would be reprising the role of elven archer Legolas in The Hobbit, director Peter Jackson has confirmed the actor's involvement in his two-film Lord of the Rings prequel.

"Ten years ago, Orlando Bloom created an iconic character with his portrayal of Legolas," Jackson said in a May 27 post on his official Facebook page. "I'm excited to announce today that we'll be revisiting Middle Earth with him once more. I’m thrilled to be working with Orlando again. Funny thing is, I look older—and he doesn’t! I guess that's why he makes such a wonderful elf."

Principal Photography Begins on 'The Hobbit'

Be excited, J.R.R. Tolkienites! Warner Bros./New Line Cinema and MGM Studios have announced that principal photography has officially begun on The Hobbit, Peter Jackson’s highly anticipated two-film prequel to his Academy Award-winning Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Furthermore, as I learned on /Film, Jackson will be keeping fans updated throughout the production with an official Facebook page, featuring news and photos from the set (including the one posted above). Check out and “Like” this page on Facebook by clicking here.

In other Lord of the Rings news, we’re getting a monstrous Blu-ray boxed set of the Extended Edition trilogy on June 28. For more on that, head over to Topless Robot.

Warner Bros. to Distribute and Fund 'The Hobbit'

Tolkienites rejoice! Deadline.com is reporting that production on The Hobbit can officially move forward unfettered, as Warner Bros. has agreed to distribute both films and cover their combined $500 million price tag.

To make a long and convoluted story short, cash-strapped MGM Studios owns the rights to the property but lack the funds to bring it to the movie-going masses. As a result of this new deal, MGM will retain worldwide television rights to the films, while Warner Bros. will reap the benefits of their global box-office take as well as home video sales.

The two-film Lord of the Rings prequel, helmed by returning franchise director Peter Jackson, begins shooting next month. Rumored to return to Middle-earth are Lord of the Rings alumni Cate Blanchett, Sir Ian McKellan, Orlando Bloom and Elijah Wood.

For the full story, click here.

Orlando Bloom, Cate Blanchett Return for 'The Hobbit'

Deadline is reporting that Orlando Bloom is expected to reprise the role of Legolas in The Hobbit, the forthcoming two-part prequel to Peter Jackson’s Academy Award-winning Lord of the Rings trilogy. This news follows confirmation that Cate Blanchett will be returning to the J.R.R. Tolkien film franchise as Galadriel.

It should be noted that neither Legolas nor the Lady of the Wood explicitly appear in Tolkien’s original text, but I wager Jackson will have little trouble weaving them into the core narrative.

For the full story, click here.

There and Back Again: Peter Jackson Might Direct 'The Hobbit'

After director Guillermo del Toro decided to step away from Peter Jackson’s highly anticipated two-film adaptation of The Hobbit, things seemed bleak for the Lord of the Rings prequel. Now, Deadline.com reports, it looks like the Academy Award-winning director of the Rings trilogy is planning to helm the films himself.

Although this news has yet to be confirmed by Jackson’s camp, the Kiwi director is reportedly in the negotiations stage with New Line Cinema, Warner Bros. and MGM.

Click here for the full story.

Guillermo del Toro Kicks The Hobbit

Ready for some bad news? Guillermo del Toro (Pan’s Labyrinth, Hellboy) recently told J.R.R. Tolkien fansite TheOneRing.net that he will no longer be directing the planned two-part film adaptation of The Hobbit.

“In light of ongoing delays in the setting of a start date for filming The Hobbit, I am faced with the hardest decision of my life,” Guillermo said. “After nearly two years of living, breathing and designing a world as rich as Tolkien’s Middle Earth, I must, with great regret, take leave from helming these wonderful pictures.”

However, hardcore Tolkienites need not start crying into their Elven cloaks just yet. The films are reportedly still happening, and are scheduled for release in December 2012 and December 2013.

But what does Academy Award-winning Lord of the Rings director and Hobbit executive producer Peter Jackson have to say about his pal del Toro’s departure?

“We feel very sad to see Guillermo leave The Hobbit, but he has kept us fully in the loop and we understand how the protracted development time on these two films—due to reasons beyond anyone’s control—has compromised his commitment to other long term projects,” Jackson said. “The bottom line is that Guillermo just didn’t feel he could commit six years to living in New Zealand, exclusively making these films, when his original commitment was for three years.”

While he won’t be in the director’s chair, del Toro is still co-writing the screenplays, and will remain as close to the production as possible—assuming it ever moves forward.

Production Delayed on The Hobbit

Peter Jackson has announced that production on the two-part film adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit will start in the summer of 2010—a few months later than expected, Variety reports. The Lord of the Rings prequels, helmed by Hellboy director Guillermo del Toro, are slated for release in December 2011 and December 2012.

But what on Middle-earth is the hold up? Jackson, an executive producer on the film, said that he, Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens and del Toro are still working on the second Hobbit script, and aim to have it finished early next year. After the script is completed, the film will be budgeted and shooting can begin in New Zealand.

I have faith in Jackson, and I doubt we’ll be seeing the first installment of The Hobbit any later than 2011. But whenever it does hit theaters, rest assured: geeks will be there…and back again.