Spoilers! Also sorry this is coming out really late I just went to the movies this Sunday. Christmas parties are kind of prevalent in my life right now
"The Hobbit the battle of the five armies" (three and a half armies or even four if we want to get technical), is "supposedly" (there's still the similarion and some other works I believe) the last movie of both the Hobbit trilogy and "The Lord of the Rings" movies in general. Now truth be told I've only one of the original Lord of the Rings movie- Fellowship which I really liked but I only watched recently which was last week. That's mostly because I was too young to know that the movies even existed let alone was old enough to see a movie in theaters. I also have not read any of the Lord of the rings books either. I have read the original Hobbit book and I have watched all three films.
I loved "aN unexpected Journey" even though a lot of people hated it, I loved it because it was a good adventure movie to me, it was charming, I liked a lot of the characters and Bilbo Baggins a character I loved (he's like my twelfth favorite character which is why I didn't put him on my top ten favorite characters list) was actually the focus of it and was played wonderfully by Martin Freeman (who I also love.) I hate "Desolation of Smaug" because to me it was too convoluted, filled with a lot of characters I didn't like, was boring and was so long with such a slow pace I wanted to kill myself twice by the halfway point. That being said how did I feel about "Battle of the five armies".... it was ok.
I didn't hate like "Desolation of Smaug", I overall did like it and could watch it again but I didn't love it like "An unexpected Journey."
First off lets get to the good. Martin Freeman as Bilbo Baggins is as wonderful as ever, he's interesting to watch and is completely likeable. Martin Freeman has this really low key charm that is comfortable and makes you want him to be your friend which is why I was mad when he got kind of shafted in "Desolation of Smaug" especially considering who was put into the forefront in his place. I'll get to them later but I really didn't like the Dwarves in this movie as opposed to the last two but a stand out among them was Kili who despite a rather "meh" romance was an actual character with a distinct personality and Aidan Turner did a good job with hardly anything to work with.
I also really liked Lee Pace in this movie who I wish had his character of Thraundil expanded in this movie because he seems really interesting and does prove by the end to be a little more than the pompus ass he was originally. A standout was Luke Evans as Bard the Bowman who was really cool, he's very likeable, very relatable and you were rooting for him and his family to be ok in the end and come out with a happy ending. This makes me hope Luke Evans has a good career overall because he really is a good actor and does a lot with roles such as the every man role and adds a lot of weight to it.
A big problem I had in the last movie was the pace, "Desolation of Smaug" dragged in so many places and did a lot of padding. It made the movie which is already pretty long felt even longer and boring and made it not worth rewatching for me. To me there is a certain level of length of a movie I can take before I hit a wall, get bored and want to snap, in fact you can say that for a lot of people in fact, and pace in a movie can help a movie that is three hours long feel pretty short or painfully long.
Thankfully for "Battle of the five armies" despite being two hours and twenty-four movies breezes by very pleasantly and doesn't drag, all thanks to the fact they are a bit more able to work with a faster pace this time around. "Battle of the five armies" on that note is very entertaining and a lot of fun to watch, the action is great and one of the best is a wizard battle between Sauron's forces and Elrond, Saurmon and Galadriel (who strange enough after their battle in the beginning disappear for the rest of the movie and never return or are mention.)
The movie is also wonderfully scored and has an orchestral soundtrack that actually almost compeled me to buy it ITunes.
Now of course no movie is perfect and while I did like this better than "Desolation of Smaug" this one still has some problems. For one thing Tauriel is a waste of a character, while Kili clearly has some character outside of his romance with Tauriel, Tauriel really doesn't and while it's cool to see her kick some ass other than that their isn't much too her. And when you've got a character completely original to the source material it could have been a chance for Jackson and company to get creative. In comparison to "Fellowship" (the only one I can compare with since I have yet to see "Two towers" and "Return of the king") while Arwen was mostly a love interest you could tell she was her own person with something to her and from some stuff I heard gets more interesting in the later movies. The romance between her and Kili isn't bad but it's never fully developed and they don't even get together by the end so it's kind of pointless.
Legolas is also dead space that could have been used to develop other characters. There is some stuff with him and apparent "mommy issues" but it's never fully developed and feels just tacked on with no purpose. The Dwarves which I loved in the last two films have really nothing to do here except either fight or die.
Speaking of the Dwarves my least favorite character in the entire series is Thorin. Richard Armitage is a great actor and overall gives a good performance but my god the character of Thorin Oakenshield is a selfish, pompus douchebag. He almost murders Bilbo, refuses to help the humans whose problems he's caused, he would rather go to war than give back some jewels just to spite someone and is a paranoid prick. I know the intent is that he's a good honorable man who has now been corrupted but even in the last two movies he was a selfish ass.
And the thing is you can have a character who is a selfish ass and still make the likeable for example Boromir in "Fellowship of the ring" was an ass but he had more redeeming qualities that made you give a damn that he died.
However probably the worst part of this movie is the special effects. Almost every backdrop you can tell was done in front of a green screen and that's not saying CGI is at all bad but here it looked terrible. Sorry to bring it back to "Fellowship" but that movie was made in 2001 and looks fantastic compared to this film because mainly it was actually there. When you have actual sets and good CGI or effects that make the world look real it creates an atmosphere that makes the movie more than it is and allow you to get into it better. Here because you can tell everything is a special effect to the point where sometimes the characters were completely CGI it takes you out of the movie and doesn't allow you to connect as well.
A finale problem I have is pacing, while I did include as a good thing about the movie it's also a bit of a bad thing as well because it goes by so fast you never have a chance to breathe and we never really find out what happens to most of the character. Elrond, Sauroman, and Galadriel completely disappear after their five minute battle, Legolas is underdeveloped, we never find out what happens to Tauriel or Bard even though they end up surviving the film and the movie kind of ends abruptly.
Overall I give this movie a 5.5/10~ I liked this movie way better than "Desolation of Smaug" this is a very flawed movie
Also as an after thought I will give my opinion on whether the Hobbit as rather short and simple book into a trilogy. This for me is in the same realm as splitting a movie into two parts, I try not to count it into my finale score as whether or not it was necessary. I actually think that the Hobbit did need to be more than one movie but it did not need to be three. Two movies would have been perfect and it would actually make this series a lot stronger if they split "Desolation of smaug" right down the middle putting the first half with "An expected journey" (end it with them after Laketown and reaching the mountains) and put the second half with "Battle of the five armies" (start it with Bilbo meeting Smaug for the first time) and rename it "There and Back again" which was supposed to be the original title for Battle of the five armies.
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