[Author’s note: As always with any review, if you don’t want to know then this is where you should look away.]
I went to this movie reluctantly. I had already caught the first two installments of the series and was not pleased at all with the results. As with Lord of the rings (LotR), Peter Jackson, the director, divided up the book into three movies. Whereas in LotR the formula fit fairly well, in The Hobbit this division was extremely forced and obviously didn’t work. The studio or Jackson himself tried to squeeze way too much out of the book and the added on story lines were ill thought out and served no real purpose.
So when I went to see this installment on Christmas Eve night I wasn’t hopeful at all. I wasn’t wrong. The dragon Smaug, who had been the main focus of dread for the first two movies, gets killed by Bard in the first 10 minutes of the film. I’m not saying he shouldn’t have died but honestly that kind of deflated the movie before it really even got started.
In the meantime Gandalf has been captured by Sauron’s forces and is being held in a tower. He is about to be killed when he is rescued by Galadriel, Saruman, and Elrond. A love affair is hinted at between Gandalf and Galadriel which wasn’t in the books and never goes anywhere in any case, and Saruman is left to “take care” of Sauron, portending Saruman’s corruption in LotR. Kind of a pointless scene but I suppose this is meant to link to the previous series of movies.
Back at the lonely mountain the human survivors of Smaug’s attack choose Bard as their leader and try to rebuild. Tauriel and Legolas go north to investigate sightings of an Orc army from the north. The love affair between Tauriel the elf and Kili the dwarf is declared impossible.
Thorin Oakenshield, the dwarf king, begins to grow paranoid and demands that his dwarves find the Arkenstone, a mystical jewel of power somewhere inside the mountain. He begins to get very greedy about his gold and decides to renege on his promise to repay the humans for their aid.
Azog, the Orc leader, marches out with an Orc army to attack the dwarves.
Meanwhile Thranduil, the elf king, arrives with an elf army. He has some claims on the treasure in the mountain and forms an alliance with Bard against the dwarves.
Bilbo Baggins has found the Arkenstone and sneaks out to meet Thranduil and Bard. He hopes to barter the Arkenstone to settle the conflict but Thorin won’t hear of it. A dwarf army arrives to bolster Thorin.
In the north, Legolas and Tauriel discover a second Orc army on its way to the mountain and race back to warn everyone.
Gandalf arrives on the battlefield warning about an orc army but no one listens to him. As the elf-human army and dwarf army begin to get ready to fight each other, Azog arrives with his orc army and attacks everyone.
The dwarves, elves, and humans put aside their differences and begin to cooperate but Thorin will not join in the fight. His greed blinds him and he hides in the mountain. Finally after a long delirious fit, he realizes his folly and joins the fight.
Thorin chases after Azog and finally kills him but not before Fili and Kili die and Thorin receives a mortal wound. Tauriel mourns Kili.
The second orc army arrives but is destroyed by the arrival of giant eagles.
Bilbo Baggins returns home to find he has been declared dead and his home and goods are being auctioned off. He proves his identity and reclaims his home. The scene flashes forward 60 years and links up to LotR.
As a movie buff and a reader I understand that certain liberties must sometimes be taken with books. I appreciate how hard it is to turn written descriptions into something that will appeal visually to a general audience.
In this case however I find the liberties taken to be too much. Not just one but several characters were made up. Scenes were excised and other scenes were added, and every fight scene cliché was tossed in resulting in a battle scene well over 30 minutes long. On top of that the new filming process makes the characters look cartoon like.
I watched this last movie for the sake of completeness. I wanted to give it a fair chance but the new series of movies just didn’t capture the magic of the first series. This may be a matter of just having too high an expectation or perhaps it’s that The Hobbit is really a kid’s book and really didn’t translate well into a movie for more mature audiences. Perhaps it’s also that my tastes have matured in the last few years and that eye candy alone doesn’t satisfy anymore. I am finding more and more that the new movies coming out of Hollywood are focusing too much on stunning visuals and almost ignoring story lines completely.
Whatever the case may be, I would not recommend this movie for anyone over 18 years of age or expecting something that is faithful to the book. See it if you want to see some mindless action but don’t expect to draw too much deep wisdom from it.
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