Bilbo and company are forced to engage in a war against an array of combatants and keep the Lonely Mountain from falling into the hands of a rising darkness.
The dwarves, along with Bilbo Baggins and Gandalf the Grey, continue their quest to reclaim Erebor, their homeland, from Smaug. Bilbo Baggins is in possession of a mysterious and magical ring.
Director:
Peter Jackson
Stars:
Ian McKellen,
Martin Freeman,
Richard Armitage
Jack Sparrow races to recover the heart of Davy Jones to avoid enslaving his soul to Jones' service, as other friends and foes seek the heart for their own agenda as well.
Director:
Gore Verbinski
Stars:
Johnny Depp,
Orlando Bloom,
Keira Knightley
Captain Barbossa, Will Turner and Elizabeth Swann must sail off the edge of the map, navigate treachery and betrayal, find Jack Sparrow, and make their final alliances for one last decisive battle.
Director:
Gore Verbinski
Stars:
Johnny Depp,
Orlando Bloom,
Keira Knightley
While Frodo and Sam edge closer to Mordor with the help of the shifty Gollum, the divided fellowship makes a stand against Sauron's new ally, Saruman, and his hordes of Isengard.
A meek Hobbit from the Shire and eight companions set out on a journey to destroy the powerful One Ring and save Middle-earth from the Dark Lord Sauron.
Blacksmith Will Turner teams up with eccentric pirate "Captain" Jack Sparrow to save his love, the governor's daughter, from Jack's former pirate allies, who are now undead.
Three years into the Clone Wars, the Jedi rescue Palpatine from Count Dooku. As Obi-wan pursues a new threat, Anakin acts as a double agent between the Jedi Council and Palpatine and is lured into a sinister plan to rule the galaxy.
Two Jedi Knights escape a hostile blockade to find allies and come across a young boy who may bring balance to the Force, but the long dormant Sith resurface to claim their old glory.
After the Dragon leaves the Lonely Mountain, the people of Lake-town see a threat coming. Orcs, dwarves, elves and people prepare for war. Bilbo sees Thorin going mad and tries to help. Meanwhile, Gandalf is rescued from the Necromancer's prison and his rescuers realize who the Necromancer is.
When Legolas grabs the Gundabad bat to fly to nearby tower, he is upside down for couple of minutes. His arrows should have fallen out of his quiver. However, when he lands, his quiver is full of arrows. See more »
Quotes
Thorin Oakenshield:
I am so sorry... that I have lead you to such peril...
[coughs]
Bilbo Baggins:
No! I am glad to have shared in your perils, Thorin. Each and every one of them. It is far more than any Baggins deserves!
See more »
Crazy Credits
The closing credits are accompanied by sketches of people/locations from across the Hobbit trilogy. See more »
Alternate Versions
2015 Extended Edition Blu-ray contains twenty minutes additional footage, including more graphic violence, increasing the run-time to 164 minutes. Due to the extra amount of violence, this version has been rated R by the MPAA. See more »
What a difference an Extended Edition makes. For the first part we got some jolly embellishment. For The Desolation of Smaug we got bags more depth and character. For The Battle of the Five Armies, it may - I hope - be transformative. Because right now this feels like An Unfinished Journey.
It's as if, after all the complaints about splitting a pamphlet of a novel into three parts, Peter Jackson is playing a joke on us: This is what you get when you ask for Middle-earth-lite. Characters we've come to love or loathe arc into nothing; others (e.g. Beorn and Radagast) are given literally seconds of screen time; and for the first time in this prequel trilogy, a whole chapter (The Return Journey) is pretty much elided entirely.
I'd like to be clear on my admiration for what Peter Jackson has done with The Hobbit so far. For all The Lord of the Rings' mythic grandeur and complex world-building, there's a warm geniality and brisk impetus to these lovingly crafted films. And those qualities are married to a thematic depth missing from its bedtime story source. Home and borders are themes that have run through this trilogy, from Bilbo's (Martin Freeman) heartfelt declaration of solidarity at the end of An Unexpected Journey, to Kili's (Aidan Turner) fevered speech to Tauriel (Evangeline Lilly) as she heals his wounds in Desolation, when they realise reconciliation is possible. Heck, I even like the addition of Tauriel - though her unsatisfying conclusion is perhaps typical of a final chapter that too often fails to tie up its loose ends.
The movie kicks off from precisely where the second ended, with the dread dragon Smaug (Benedict Cumberbatch) descending upon Laketown. The citizens flee but nothing can stop the cataclysm - until a certain someone finds an ingenious way to pierce the beast. Then there's nemesis #2: Sauron (also Cumberbatch). We get to see some familiar faces face-off with this faceless monstrosity.
The story then enters its most intriguing phase: a kind of psychodrama involving Thorin (Richard Armitage) and his sickening relationship with gold and power. It's the one time we really glimpse that signature Jackson oddness, in a wonderful hallucinatory sequence where Thorin imagines he's sinking in a lake of gold.
The narrative follows the book fairly closely. This was, after all, the stage of the story where Professor Tolkien finally foregrounded politics and ethics and the machinations of characters ahead of adventure. The film is at its most successful in the quieter moments, as Thranduil (a subtle Lee Pace) ponders the duty of the elves; as Bard (a brooding Luke Evans) comes to the gate of the mountain to plead for peace; and as Thorin struggles with his "dragon-sickness" (i.e. greed), while Bilbo wrestles with the dilemma of what to do with a certain stolen gemstone.
Thorin was presented at first as this trilogy's Aragorn. But over time we've learned of the dangerous pride that ruined his grandfather. Thorin's hubris and arrogance is in stark contrast to Bilbo's very relatable and achievable traits of decency and humility. The gulf between them is intriguing and wisely plundered for drama. Armitage and Bilbo provide the best performances of the film - mostly internal; mostly in the eyes - and their farewell is one of the more moving moments in a trilogy that has largely prioritised humour over pathos.
The battle itself is undoubtedly impressive - great roaring hordes punctuated with spectacular giants - but in a sense it compounds the problem of the relatively truncated runtime. What was already the shortest Middle-earth film is rendered artificially even shorter by the fact that there's 45 minutes of virtually wordless fighting. By now we should all be braced for Super Legolas and his physics-defying fighting style. That reaches new heights here; as he sprints up a crumbling bridge like he's on the wrong escalator, it's like some sort of visual satire on the weightlessness of CGI.
With its last bastion and swarming armies, the titular battle resembles The Return of the King's Pelennor finale - yet that movie took breath between its showdowns. Galadriel vs. Sauron; Legolas vs. Bolg; Thorin vs. Azog... it's like we're watching someone finish off a video game but we're powerless to stop them skipping the tension- or character-building cutscenes. Moreover, the dubious editing decisions create some strange and jolting juxtapositions and tonal lurches, and negate the sense of time passing or of great distances being crossed.
The result is a film that really earns its status of "theatrical cut", insofar as it resembles many a boisterous blockbuster. This is fairly damning criticism for a Middle-earth movie, usually so luxurious and layered in its sense of a unique world. There's plenty of meat here - but where are the bones that hold it all together? 11 months away, perhaps.
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What a difference an Extended Edition makes. For the first part we got some jolly embellishment. For The Desolation of Smaug we got bags more depth and character. For The Battle of the Five Armies, it may - I hope - be transformative. Because right now this feels like An Unfinished Journey.
It's as if, after all the complaints about splitting a pamphlet of a novel into three parts, Peter Jackson is playing a joke on us: This is what you get when you ask for Middle-earth-lite. Characters we've come to love or loathe arc into nothing; others (e.g. Beorn and Radagast) are given literally seconds of screen time; and for the first time in this prequel trilogy, a whole chapter (The Return Journey) is pretty much elided entirely.
I'd like to be clear on my admiration for what Peter Jackson has done with The Hobbit so far. For all The Lord of the Rings' mythic grandeur and complex world-building, there's a warm geniality and brisk impetus to these lovingly crafted films. And those qualities are married to a thematic depth missing from its bedtime story source. Home and borders are themes that have run through this trilogy, from Bilbo's (Martin Freeman) heartfelt declaration of solidarity at the end of An Unexpected Journey, to Kili's (Aidan Turner) fevered speech to Tauriel (Evangeline Lilly) as she heals his wounds in Desolation, when they realise reconciliation is possible. Heck, I even like the addition of Tauriel - though her unsatisfying conclusion is perhaps typical of a final chapter that too often fails to tie up its loose ends.
The movie kicks off from precisely where the second ended, with the dread dragon Smaug (Benedict Cumberbatch) descending upon Laketown. The citizens flee but nothing can stop the cataclysm - until a certain someone finds an ingenious way to pierce the beast. Then there's nemesis #2: Sauron (also Cumberbatch). We get to see some familiar faces face-off with this faceless monstrosity.
The story then enters its most intriguing phase: a kind of psychodrama involving Thorin (Richard Armitage) and his sickening relationship with gold and power. It's the one time we really glimpse that signature Jackson oddness, in a wonderful hallucinatory sequence where Thorin imagines he's sinking in a lake of gold.
The narrative follows the book fairly closely. This was, after all, the stage of the story where Professor Tolkien finally foregrounded politics and ethics and the machinations of characters ahead of adventure. The film is at its most successful in the quieter moments, as Thranduil (a subtle Lee Pace) ponders the duty of the elves; as Bard (a brooding Luke Evans) comes to the gate of the mountain to plead for peace; and as Thorin struggles with his "dragon-sickness" (i.e. greed), while Bilbo wrestles with the dilemma of what to do with a certain stolen gemstone.
Thorin was presented at first as this trilogy's Aragorn. But over time we've learned of the dangerous pride that ruined his grandfather. Thorin's hubris and arrogance is in stark contrast to Bilbo's very relatable and achievable traits of decency and humility. The gulf between them is intriguing and wisely plundered for drama. Armitage and Bilbo provide the best performances of the film - mostly internal; mostly in the eyes - and their farewell is one of the more moving moments in a trilogy that has largely prioritised humour over pathos.
The battle itself is undoubtedly impressive - great roaring hordes punctuated with spectacular giants - but in a sense it compounds the problem of the relatively truncated runtime. What was already the shortest Middle-earth film is rendered artificially even shorter by the fact that there's 45 minutes of virtually wordless fighting. By now we should all be braced for Super Legolas and his physics-defying fighting style. That reaches new heights here; as he sprints up a crumbling bridge like he's on the wrong escalator, it's like some sort of visual satire on the weightlessness of CGI.
With its last bastion and swarming armies, the titular battle resembles The Return of the King's Pelennor finale - yet that movie took breath between its showdowns. Galadriel vs. Sauron; Legolas vs. Bolg; Thorin vs. Azog... it's like we're watching someone finish off a video game but we're powerless to stop them skipping the tension- or character-building cutscenes. Moreover, the dubious editing decisions create some strange and jolting juxtapositions and tonal lurches, and negate the sense of time passing or of great distances being crossed.
The result is a film that really earns its status of "theatrical cut", insofar as it resembles many a boisterous blockbuster. This is fairly damning criticism for a Middle-earth movie, usually so luxurious and layered in its sense of a unique world. There's plenty of meat here - but where are the bones that hold it all together? 11 months away, perhaps.