The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (2014)
★★ — The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (2014)
The Battle of the Five Armies arrived in December 2014 as the third and final chapter of Peter Jackson's controversial decision to expand J.R.R. Tolkien's single children's novel into a trilogy, a move that stretched roughly 310 pages of source material across nearly eight hours of screen time. Jackson had originally planned only two films before New Line and MGM pushed for a third, and the production itself was notoriously turbulent, with Guillermo del Toro departing as director in 2010 after two years of development, leaving Jackson to step in under considerable time pressure. Shot back-to-back with its predecessors in New Zealand on a combined budget somewhere north of $700 million across the trilogy, the film carried the considerable weight of closing out a franchise that had generated mixed critical returns despite strong box office, with this final instalment ultimately grossing close to a billion dollars worldwide.
After the highs of An Unexpected Journey and the messy middle of Desolation, this “finale” feels less like an epic conclusion and more like a studio exec scribbling “ADD MORE EXPLOSIONS” in red ink over Tolkien’s original third act. The problem is it’s just boring . Bilbo’s sidelined, the titular battle is a muddy blur of CGI armies, and Azog’s relentless cameo turns him into the Duracell bunny of Middle-earth. Why is he even here? Smaug’s dead! Let the dwarves sort their gold. Instead, we get Azog riding a white warg like he’s auditioning for Game of Thrones, while Legolas does parkour over corpses. It’s less “epic clash of civilizations” and more “let’s throw every budget leftover at the screen.” Tolkien’s original skipped the battle because Bilbo was knocked out. Smart move. Jackson fills the gap with… more Azog, more dwarves arguing about treasure, and a romance subplot (still?) that fizzles before it starts. The emotional core (the cost of greed, Bilbo’s quiet heroism) is buried under collapsing stone bridges and elf-dwarf drama. And when Bilbo finally wakes up, it’s all “Oh hey, Gandalf’s back!” as if we weren’t just watching a two-hour filler episode. It’s not all bad (Smaug’s death scene still slaps), and Howard Shore’s score swells with melancholy for the Shire’s farewell. But this isn’t The Hobbit anymore. It’s The Hobbit: Now with 400% more hollywood. A real shame.
Rating: ★★ | Year: 2014 | Watched: 2025-06-05
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Related on Movies With Macca
More from Peter Jackson: King Kong (2005) · The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012) · The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2013) · The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
More with Ian McKellen: The Da Vinci Code (2006) · X-Men: The Last Stand (2006) · X2 (2003) · The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012)
More from New Zealand: What We Do in the Shadows (2014) · Mortal Engines (2018) · King Kong (2005) · 'Aho'eitu (2015)
More from the 2010s: Wonder (2017) · Beautiful Boy (2018) · The Witch (2015) · What We Do in the Shadows (2014)
More action: A Better Tomorrow (1986) · The General (1926) · Hand of Death (1976) · Daredevil (2003)
More adventure: Alice in Wonderland (1951) · The Eagle (1925) · Louisiana Story (1948) · The General (1926)
