There wasn't a movie on this planet I was less excited about than The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies. For a studio looking to milk every last drop of the LoTR franchise, the book's final epic battle was a godsend, an action-packed mega event to build a third (it was originally meant to be two) movie around. Sure enough, we got three hours of battle scenes padded by bits of sparse and misshapen story.
That's FINE, though. I'm not immune to spectacle. Pacific Rim was no better as a story but its relatively novel (for most people) visual palette made it a stirring cinematic experience. Unfortunately for The Battle of the Five Armies, no CGI aesthetic has been more thoroughly drained than the Massive Army Porn genre that began with literally the opening minutes of The Fellowship of the Ring and went on to color every major action/fantasy blockbuster for a decade (See: Troy, 300). The prospect of shepherding my belligerently stoned friends through the labyrinth of escalators at the theater and sitting through three hours of sweep shots of lumbering trolls and two differently colored puddles of soldiers merging in the middle of the screen just doesn't do it for me anymore. The well is dry.
That said, Miller is working with a palette all his own, one strong enough to tell a story by itself, and one that hasn't been beaten entirely into the ground. While just about any post-human society movie draws at least some visual reference from Mad Max, the Auto-pocalypse genre has been a largely dormant genre save for the Fast and Dystopian Futurous re-make of Death Race 2000. Miller's also returning to this canvas with tools he's never had before, ones that will give life to his mad vision without dictating it. Who knows if the story will be good, but I can guarantee there will be some thrill in watching it unfold.
Can't wait.
