Stars Martin Freeman, Ian McKellen, Richard Armitage, Luke Evans, Lee Pace, Ken Stott, Aiden Turner, Evangeline Lilly, Manu Bennett, Benedict Cumberbatch with Orlando Bloom, Hugo Weaving, Cate Blanchett, Billy Connolly and Christopher Lee… and many many more. Directed by Peter Jackson I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned that I have not read The Hobbit in its entirety. The comic adaptation by Chuck Dixon, sure, but not the book. And again, did it warrant three movies? Therein lies part of the problem. Even if I remember the comic correctly, this final battle barely took up even a quarter of the book. In making the movie, I’m sure director Peter Jackson along with his writers, Philippa Boyens and Fran Walsh, probably with notes from previous assigned director, Guillermo del Toro and adding ‘notes from Tolkien’, they needed to figure out - for cinematic narrative sake - why the armies converged in the first place, aside from simply wanting the Dragon’s hoard; why was Throin being chased by this Orc; what really happened during the titular battle aside from being one giant mêlée. From a technical perspective, the movie is awesome. Jackson deserves the credit for making the massive battle intriguing to watch and follow, even if it takes up over half the running time of the almost two and a half hour movie. (The inevitable extended edition will add on an additional half hour.) It’s also varied enough that it doesn’t repeat anything we’ve seen before, making Helm’s Deep seem like a little scuffle and the big one in The Return of The King deservedly huge. Still, there was a sense of ‘battle fatigue’ that set in. While those who read the book will know how the battle plays out - particularly who dies - the additional characters added into the narrative will provide some surprises, to an extent. So, no spoilers. Well, aside from mentioning that the movie opens by closing the second chapter, The Desolation of Smaug. Once that’s out of the way, only then does the title for this instalment appear on screen. The narrative flows as well as it can, but at times, feels like it was meant for the small screen. Not network television, but following the likes of Game of Thrones. The scale and grandeur justifies a cinematic release but you can’t help that perhaps, this is one film too many. Eventually, it is what it is and there’s nothing much I can add to that. I’ve spent a couple of days trying to figure how to write this and if you’ve seen the first two parts as well as the preceding trilogy, you’re going to see this anyway. If you’ve skipped it before, nothing I say will change your mind. There is much to marvel at, in my case, it’s from the technical side of things; the sets, the costumes, the cinematography, the effects, the music, the sculpts and make-up, the fight choreography, etc. The performances are uniform, carrying on from the previous instalments, so nothing to mention there. The story and plot… well… yeah, it could have done with some nip and tuck. With an extended edition coming out, it’s probably already had that. Rating ***1/2 / 5
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