Epic, Fierce, Intense and at times; completely ridiculous.
The Hobbit: The Battle Of The Five Armies is the third installment in Peter Jackson’s epic J.R.R. Tolkien fantasy series. Originally, Peter Jackson planned to have the Hobbit series be only two films. I gotta say that would have helped this one out quite a bit. Easily the weakest of the trilogy, this did not have the epic finale that ‘Return Of The King’ contained. It tried, surely it did. But I failed to see how it was going to work back when ‘Unexpected Journey’ came out two years ago. Already the story was thin and could be trimmed and made better. ‘Desolation of Smaug’ was the strongest of the series, but all three could have had about an hour trimmed out of all of them and they would have been better movies.
For starters, ‘Unexpected Journey’ and ‘Five Armies’ both had weak story elements that were thinned out in favor of overly long, to the point of being boring, action sequences. The Hobbit series, I feel, has really been more about using the fantasy elements and battles as a vehicle to push new CGI technology and 3-D elements than it has about telling a good story. The feeling of: “Oh That Looks Cool!” has taken over character development and basic storytelling. Some of the scenes do nothing to push story elements or add anything. They are just pure spectacle and mainly purposeless.
Because of the skeleton thin plot, we are subject to filler material which makes the pacing of the movie grind to a snooze fest. We have pointless video game like battle scenes. There are characters with dialog that doesn’t matter in the poor attempt for comic relief. As a result of all this filler, the stuff that does matter is not fully realized and rushed over such as: Tauriel’s love story, why Oakenshield has dragon-sickness, and how did Galadriel defeat Sauron so easily? The absolute worst part of this movie, and what continued to break the fourth wall upon each appearance was actor: Ryan Gage.
He was obviously an attempt to make kids laugh at how silly he was. If this film had a Jar-Jar Binks, he was it. He was not trustworthy, yet he kept getting duties and not doing them. He had no relevance to the overall story, and he certainly wasn’t in the original book. Overall, we spend about forty five minutes watching this dolt weasel around. I would trust that J.R.R. Tolkien would have more class than to write these cheap attempt at laughs into his books. I don’t remember the other ‘Hobbit’ movies having the same degree of outlandishness. But hey - when you kill Smaug, the most interesting part of the movie, before the title sequence; you gotta fill time somehow.
Given the fact that 'The Hobbit' series is the more kid oriented of the Tolkien books, it’s understandable that it’s sillier and more fantastical than the other Lord of The Rings movies. But the other two were much more fun and epic. This final chapter is darker, more violent, and generally just doesn’t have the same adventurous feel as the other two. It feels rushed, unfocused, and lacking in narrative. It provides closer to the story and that’s about it. The beginning is good and same with the end but the middle makes this the weakest of all the stories told of middle earth.
The Hobbit: The Battle Of The Five Armies is the third installment in Peter Jackson’s epic J.R.R. Tolkien fantasy series. Originally, Peter Jackson planned to have the Hobbit series be only two films. I gotta say that would have helped this one out quite a bit. Easily the weakest of the trilogy, this did not have the epic finale that ‘Return Of The King’ contained. It tried, surely it did. But I failed to see how it was going to work back when ‘Unexpected Journey’ came out two years ago. Already the story was thin and could be trimmed and made better. ‘Desolation of Smaug’ was the strongest of the series, but all three could have had about an hour trimmed out of all of them and they would have been better movies.
For starters, ‘Unexpected Journey’ and ‘Five Armies’ both had weak story elements that were thinned out in favor of overly long, to the point of being boring, action sequences. The Hobbit series, I feel, has really been more about using the fantasy elements and battles as a vehicle to push new CGI technology and 3-D elements than it has about telling a good story. The feeling of: “Oh That Looks Cool!” has taken over character development and basic storytelling. Some of the scenes do nothing to push story elements or add anything. They are just pure spectacle and mainly purposeless.
Because of the skeleton thin plot, we are subject to filler material which makes the pacing of the movie grind to a snooze fest. We have pointless video game like battle scenes. There are characters with dialog that doesn’t matter in the poor attempt for comic relief. As a result of all this filler, the stuff that does matter is not fully realized and rushed over such as: Tauriel’s love story, why Oakenshield has dragon-sickness, and how did Galadriel defeat Sauron so easily? The absolute worst part of this movie, and what continued to break the fourth wall upon each appearance was actor: Ryan Gage.
He was obviously an attempt to make kids laugh at how silly he was. If this film had a Jar-Jar Binks, he was it. He was not trustworthy, yet he kept getting duties and not doing them. He had no relevance to the overall story, and he certainly wasn’t in the original book. Overall, we spend about forty five minutes watching this dolt weasel around. I would trust that J.R.R. Tolkien would have more class than to write these cheap attempt at laughs into his books. I don’t remember the other ‘Hobbit’ movies having the same degree of outlandishness. But hey - when you kill Smaug, the most interesting part of the movie, before the title sequence; you gotta fill time somehow.
Given the fact that 'The Hobbit' series is the more kid oriented of the Tolkien books, it’s understandable that it’s sillier and more fantastical than the other Lord of The Rings movies. But the other two were much more fun and epic. This final chapter is darker, more violent, and generally just doesn’t have the same adventurous feel as the other two. It feels rushed, unfocused, and lacking in narrative. It provides closer to the story and that’s about it. The beginning is good and same with the end but the middle makes this the weakest of all the stories told of middle earth.
