The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies - Extended Edition

The big draw here, with this Extended Edition of The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, is that whatever clips have been added for this bells-and-whistles retail version has caused this concluding chapter to jump up an entire rating. So a 12 certificate cinema release is transformed, through these additions, into a 15 (or a PG-13 has now been elevated into an R, if you prefer). Obviously, given director Peter Jackson's priors with extremely entertaining splatter comedies like Braindead, there's the presumption (or, perhaps more accurately, desire) that these brand new moments will revolve around the violent detonation of computer-generated bodies. Following a viewing though, and whilst browsing a list of the Extended Edition's newly restored footage to be certain, it's actually quite shocking to discover how much of this film's more exciting dramatic material was chipped away for the cut that saw the wider, big screen release. 

A brief exchange between Martin Freeman's Bilbo and James Nesbitt's dwarf Bofur, as the former attempts to quietly sneak out of a crack in a besieged mountain filled with treasures, is an early highlight. The sequence standing out not just because it is an actual conversation in a film trilogy packed with declarative exposition but because Bofur is well aware that Bilbo is, effectively, deserting and the dwarf wishes to give his blessing without outright saying so. It's a back-and-forth in which both participants are lying in word but each actor's performance, and the carefully selected phrasing of the screenwriters (Jackson credited alongside Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens and Guillermo del Toro) indicates an unspoken agreement based on a genuine friendship. Although no great shakes in most filmic contexts, this discussion is positively revelatory for a prequel series so completely dedicated to surface-level chatter that imparts nothing but momentum. As with Bilbo's battle with the Mirkwood spider nest in The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, the scene is greedily received by anyone holding the belief that, had he been allowed to, Freeman could have comfortably carried these films on his shoulders. 

Further seemingly minor insertions serve the central conceit of greed clouding the minds of otherwise noble men, adding flavour and tonal variation to a film in desperate need of something other than monotonous action and fey love triangles. Notably, the dwarven and elven armies that gather to plunder the dragon's trove actually clash in this telling, ratcheting up the tension for a forthcoming confrontation with massing goblin hordes, by pointlessly spilling each other's blood and thereby depleting any eventual alliance. Described as dragon sickness within the piece, this version allows this all-consuming avarice to visibly take hold in many formerly sympathetic characters, confirming prejudices and setting the allied armies of antiquity against each other. All of which results in a particularly needless, but nevertheless entertaining pre-main event slaughter. Speaking of which, the prolonged battles that account for the majority of Five Armies' runtime also reveal the reason for this film's harsher home video certificate. As hoped for, we are treated to many fresh instances in which Wētā's textured marionettes are absolutely pulverised. Again, these additions introduce much needed variety into the bloodless back-and-forth between enormous, computer-generated legions seen in the theatrical cut. 

A sequence in which Bilbo's dwarven friends commandeer a war chariot, complete with whirring Ben-Hur teeth that shear legs from beneath armoured orcs and turn the heads of misshapen trolls into black, blubbery messes, is a significantly better version of the roller coaster-style action attempted in previous Hobbits. Here, there's a sense of danger and exhilaration rather than aggravation and outright boredom. As well, the decision for the camera to dwell on mutilated orc bodies as they attempt to stand on their bleeding stumps may be grimly humorous but it is also suggestive of the pitilessness associated with industrialised warfare, in which the flesh and blood individual is exposed to all manner of terrifying mechanical horrors. This idea of indiscriminate torment was also present in the theatrical cut's firebombing of Laketown by Benedict Cumberbatch's gloating Smaug - the film's opening passage in which a thriving and comparatively advanced (when judged against the medieval ruins elsewhere) settlement is gobbled up by a swirling orange flame that descends out of the sky - but, in this longer cut, Jackson is able to reiterate the point. Basically, all the extra notes of savagery reinserted for this release lift Battle of the Five Armies out of a routine rehash of Middle Earth's greatest hits. By applying more vivid, physical accounts of pain, combat shock and human bewilderment to this material, Jackson has rather more successfully appended this misfiring serial to his own, Great War conscious take on The Lord of the Rings.