The Hobbit - Battle of the Five Armies Review Thread

My hopes of "The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies" being the ultimate film in the trilogy and ringing in good tidings of the vastly superior "The Lord of the Rings" were unfortunately dashed last night, as I walked away not completely disappointed but not satisfied either. By this point people have already made up their minds concerning this trilogy, and the third and final film is unlikely to sway anyone to the other side. Actually, I found this to be the weakest entry of the series, even below "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" which is kind of tough to swallow. I have long been a fan of Peter Jackson's work for his zany horror films, to his masterful handling of his actresses in "Heavenly Creatures", and then to his expert handling of how Hollywood films should be made with "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy. Since "King Kong" though, Jackson has fallen a bit too in love with his technical toys, and his ability to command excellent humanizing performances amidst the effects from his previous films was overshadowed by an abundance of green screen.

The film begins with a rousing sequence of Smaug attacking Lake Town, and though it's a bit shorter than I would've hoped, it certainly delivers and starts the film off on a strong note. But after, it's clear that the film has run out of emotional steam and doesn't have much plot and character development left in the tank other than the pretty obvious storyline of Thorin falling into his own greed and power. So while this plot line plays itself out, other forces of Middle-Earth begin gathering to claim the treasures of Erebor for themselves which ignites an all out war for the Dwarves' kingdom. As usual, Jackson executes the battle scenes with a grandeur of smooth chorephraphy, sweeping crane shots, and some pretty badass imagery. The only problem is that the emotional weight of peril and intrigue is pretty average, and with the events of "The Lord of the Rings" in retrospect the outcome of this showdown never feels as dangerous as perhaps it should. I praised "The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug" for having a much clearer plot and sense of place compared to its predecessor, and unfortunately this film falls back on being a bit aimless and more of a routine to go from this plot point to that one. Which is a shame because all of the elements are in place and well done as usual for Jackson; great performances from the actors especially Freeman and McKellan, beautiful shots of the New Zealand landscape, sweeping orchestra scores, and some genuinely funny moments. But as much as I wanted this film to prove itself to Jackson's detractors that the trilogy was of stand-alone value, it just doesn't. It's still a lot better than a majority of Hollywood's unnecessary sequels and pandering cash grabs that we've seen in the last decade (the abysmal "Pirates" sequels are the most glaring example) because these films don't ring hollow with redundant action sequences or "not as smart as they think" plot lines, but there is definitely something missing. Maybe it's because looking at how thrilling and emotional and technically sound that "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy was by its end, this just doesn't come close on any level. And while that's not entirely fair because it's such different source material, it won't dissuade any of Jackson's critics from their previous comments, nor should it.

"The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies" has enough technical prowess and attention to detail to not be dismissed, but unfortunately it isn't the finale audiences were hoping for and without its scenes of wonder and Middle-Earth lore that its predecessors had, falls into being labeled the weakest of the three.

7/10

LOL.

The Pirates of the Caribbean movies are a zillion times better than this piece of shit Hobbit trilogy.

And at least the Pirates movies aren't about people WALKING. What's the point of having those giant birds if you're not gonna use them?

Completely disagree.  POTC AWE was awful.  These were good, just not great.  

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (2014)

The first half was boring, the second half was amusing in a CGI-porn kind of way, but the whole thing was a disappointment and frankly kind of stupid.

The first 15 minutes resolves the Smaug trouble, which was pretty cool but begs the question "Why didn't they end the last film this way?" Of course if we go down that road it won't be long before we're into the tired discussion of why there are three movies. We know why there were three movies and it's not an interesting topic, so I'll try to avoid it but to say what's on everyone's mind: it gave us an empty, crummy trilogy.

After that we have a dull setup for what's really just one big battle for treasure. Thorin turns into this corrupt monster who must be turned back to the good side before stuff can get done. However, in what is easy to compare to the corruption of the One Ring from Lord of the Rings, this doesn't work in the same way. Instead of having the excuse of going mad because of evil jewelry, Thorin goes mad because of gold, which is just a veil for what's really going on...Thorin's an asshole. And then he's not. And it's handled very oddly in one of many moments of questionable logic in this film. Somehow Thorin's return plays a big part in the battle when really it shouldn't. But they're just following fantasy-action playbook, cliché by cliché.

One thing I noticed was this movie takes an already sausage fested franchise and hits a new low for feminism in film. There's really only two female characters in this movie. One of them is Galadriel, who gets in trouble and must be saved by her male comrades. Even worse, she is inexplicably collapsed and defeated after a battle scene she did not participate in. Then there's Kate from Lost, who's purpose in these movies has been to be the girlfriend of two suitors.

The whole thing is just despicable and makes me yearn for Eowyn.

The finale of the finale is very "deus ex machina" and is very similar to the magic ghosts who save the day in Return of the King, only this time it's even more insulting.
Then we have a mess of a finish filled with many loose ends (in an 8 hour trilogy) which is funny if you find yourself remembering this trilogy is called "The Hobbit." The hobbit is hardly in this movie and has little impact on the events.

**/****

You keep getting more and more cynical.

Its one thing to complain about the decision to make The Hobbit into 3 films for monetary purposes. But when that decision legitimately affects the quality of the films its something else entirely, and that is just what has happened here. The third Hobbit film has an odd story structure which pretty much relies on you not only seeing the previous films, but remembering them exactly. I mean, the big villain from the last movie is

There are other moments which seem like they get right into things with absolutely no build up.  Rescuing Gandalf from Dol Gulder was a big example of this.  He was just there, then the other elves and wizards were just there, and then suddenly it was all over, as though they just wanted to get that scene out of the way.

Okay, so story structure problems aside, what else?  Battle of the Five Armies actually quite an interesting exercise, since this movie above all the others in Jackson's Middle Earth series, is where he really just lets loose and explores the world in his own way.  He basically throws a but of ideas at the wall, and sometimes they sick sometimes they dont.  For example, he has dwarves riding bighorn war sheep.  Thats actually kind of cool.  But then he has giant rock worms straight out of Dune making tunnels for the orcs.  That doesn't work so well.

As a Lord of the Rings fan, it is neat to see a different part of the world on screen and a different story being told.  And the action and battle scenes were pretty solid.  One fault of this third movie is that there are no real standout scenes.  Unexpected Journey had the Gollum-cave scene.  Desolation of Smaug had the barrel chase and the Bilbo's conversation with the dragon.  Battle of the Five Armies doesn't have anything like those.

But the real problem with this movie is the plethora of stupid things that they had to throw in.  Ready?

• Wacky action stunt Legolas returns.  This time he acts like Super Mario.
  
• The dwarf-elf romance is back and as stupid as ever.
  
• The character of Alfred.  Who the hell is this guy?  He was an absolutely horrific attempt at comic relief, which they went back to way, way too often.  Just terrible... felt like he was in a different movie entirely.
  
• The "dragon sickness".  Okay, lets look at this for a second.  They make up this idea of a "dragon sickness" connected to the gold, to basically absolve Thorin of his selfish behaviour which leads the the events of the film, robbing the story of any real character development and consequences of actions.  Thorin is a greedy character, let him be greedy.  Let his downfall come at his own hands, don't create an outside force responsible so that you can keep the character pure. Pathetic decision there.
  
• They threw in Beorn back into the mix with again absolutely no introduction or build up.  And we have one shot of him running as a bear. Lame.
  

I just... I don't know.  I'm giving it a 6 out of 10 right now, but that may go down upon further reflection, or perhaps I'll be more forgiving.  Who knows.  Oh one more thing to mention, though I liked Martin Freeman as Biblo, I have to say it always seems like he's in a completely different movie then everyone else.  He feels foreign acting among all the other very serious characters and never quite blends right.  They accomplished inserting the hobbits into the world much better in the first trilogy.  But when it comes down to it, that could be said about every aspect of the two trilogies.  The Hobbits movies are a far cry from the Lord of the Rings films.

And I definitely agree with JBond and Ian's assessments of the film. Those were basically my gripes with it as well, Legolas was just awful and Tauriel's love story was even worse. Also not as much adventure and journeying here, just one location which grows stale quickly and you just want them to move on and go do something, anything else. Upon more reflection the movie is going to sour with me I'm sure, but for now I can ignore some of its faults because I found the majority of it to be enjoyable but that's about it. I'm still bitter that it was worse than the first one, I was really expecting a lot more.

Your giving Pete allot of the heat but last i checked Deltoro wrote allot of this movie as well and Boyens. My feeling is people hate it because its not in there head better then LOTR and those people ruined the whole process from the beginning. Its just bad idea to compare this to rings when there different adventures and characters. It feels like middle earth to me and yet something different. Freeman and Ian were great as Bilbo and Gandy and thats all i can hope for as a book hobbit fan.

Or maybe the movies suck and keep openly referencing the LOTR trilogy so one has no choice but to keep thinking of them?

Ohhh yeah, counting my $12 haul that I saved. Dolla dolla bills y'all, make it rain!