Review of The Hobbit 3: The Battle Of The Five Armies Full Movie

Review of The Hobbit 3: The Battle Of The Five Armies Full Movie: A couple of years ago, when I heard Peter Jackson would direct two more Middle-earth movies, I started crying out of excitement. Those two movies soon got changed into three and I was angry because I was convinced the story was too short for three three-hours-long movies. Despite the book being approximately 300 pages long, Peter Jackson & Co. proved me wrong and managed to not include big parts of the books in these movies, even though there are more than 8,5 hours of total screen time. "Disappointed" is an understatement.

I don't think this movie was supposed to make me laugh at the serious scenes and sigh at the 'comic relief' scenes -basically everything Alfred was in- but sadly it did. At least the 'funny' scenes in the Lord of the Rings trilogy were subtle and less in number; BOTFA was supposed to be "serious and dark" and those silly, ridiculous scenes pretty much ruined that.

I have nothing negative to say about the acting though. The amazing cast of this trilogy did the best they could with the awful script they were given, and I'm thankful for that. It's not their fault that their character development was rushed because the movie was full of pointless Legolas Vs. Gravity scenes, dull Tauriel scenes who fell in love with Kili after having a conversation with him once or twice - same goes for Kili who fell in love with her and even gave her the token his mother, Dís, gave him.

The worst part of this movie isn't even that it's full of badly done CGI or the big lack of proper character development. It's the fact that Tauriel, a badly written, impossible character made up by Peter Jackson & co., had more screen time than characters who were in the actual book written by J.R.R. Tolkien. Beorn basically got fifteen seconds, if not less, screen time in the last installment of this trilogy. Most of the dwarfs from the Company barely got a line, and a LOT of things are left unexplained.

For instance, what happened with Thranduil and the white gems? Did he ever get them back? 

What happened to the gold? As a fan of the books I already know the answer, but the movie didn't really care to explain this important part of the story. Come on, the entire battle was about the gold. At least take a minute to explain how it got divided. 

Where did those goats suddenly come from?

Why were the dwarfs wearing helmets when they were still inside the mountain, but had no helmets on when they actually went to war? 

What happened to the people of Lake-Town? Why didn't the movie explain that Bard became King of Dale? If I had not read the book, I'd get really annoyed after watching this movie and not knowing what had happened to them.

What was the point of those ridiculously large worms and why did no one else /ever/ mention them before? And why were they gone after ten seconds? Did they ever get killed?

Why mention Legolas' mother and never explain anything about her at all?

Besides all these unanswered questions, there are certain things which bothered me more than all of those questions combined. 1. The Durins (Thorin, Kili, Fili) didn't get a funeral. In my opinion, it's ridiculous to cut something like that out because they were basically the main characters. Which brings me to my second point. 2. I think Peter Jackson forgot that this story is called The Hobbit because Bilbo is supposed to be the main character, not Thorin. 3. Kili basically sacrificed himself for Tauriel which is unforgivable. In the actual story, Fili and Kili died defending Thorin in battle. Now the poor boy is dead because he had a crush on a badly written elf which also completely degrades the importance of Legolas and Gimli's friendship. 

Let's not forget about the scene wherein Legolas grabs a flying bat, or when Bard uses his son Bain to shoot an arrow, which should make him fall but somehow it doesn't, or when Dain and Thorin decide to hug in the middle of a battle, or when Azog somehow manages to float and dramatically opens his eyes. 

I absolutely loved the Lord of the Rings trilogy. They are my favorite movies of all time and the reason I became a fan of Tolkien's works in the first place. It's sad that Peter Jackson desperately tried to link the Hobbit movies to the LOTR trilogy because it's partly the reason why the Hobbit movies are so awful. If the unnecessary Dol Guldur scenes and the Tauriel storyline were skipped, every good part of the book which is now cut out would have easily fit in. I'm still giving this movie a 4 out of 10 though because I absolutely love the cast and I think they did a brilliant job, especially Richard Armitage and Martin Freeman. Also, the very last scene was exactly like I imagined it would be, with Ian Holm's Bilbo and Gandalf knocking on the door. Loved that part. And "The Last Goodbye" by Billy Boyd was a beautiful way to end this movie and trilogy and made me tear up.

You might enjoy this movie if you really liked the first two -I didn't-, if you're into bad CGI or movies that look like video games or if you don't really care about Tolkien's Middle-earth and are content with a movie that doesn't do Tolkien and his characters justice at all. Otherwise, you're probably someone like me and you'll leave the theater disappointed and grieve over the characters you love so much. What a difference an Extended Edition makes. For the first part, we got some jolly embellishment. For The Desolation of Smaug, we got bags more depth and character. For The Battle of the Five Armies, it may - I hope - be transformative. Because right now this feels like An Unfinished Journey.

It's as if, after all the complaints about splitting a pamphlet of a novel into three parts, Peter Jackson is playing a joke on us: This is what you get when you ask for Middle-earth-lite. Characters we've come to love or loathe arc into nothing; others (e.g. Beorn and Radagast) are given literally seconds of screen time; and for the first time in this prequel trilogy, a whole chapter (The Return Journey) is pretty much elided entirely.

I'd like to be clear on my admiration for what Peter Jackson has done with The Hobbit so far. For all The Lord of the Rings' mythic grandeur and complex world-building, there's a warm geniality and brisk impetus to these lovingly crafted films. And those qualities are married to a thematic depth missing from its bedtime story source. Home and borders are themes that have run through this trilogy, from Bilbo's (Martin Freeman) heartfelt declaration of solidarity at the end of An Unexpected Journey, to Kili's (Aidan Turner) fevered speech to Tauriel (Evangeline Lilly) as she heals his wounds in Desolation, when they realise reconciliation is possible. Heck, I even like the addition of Tauriel - though her unsatisfying conclusion is perhaps typical of a final chapter that too often fails to tie up its loose ends.

The movie kicks off from precisely where the second ended, with the dread dragon Smaug (Benedict Cumberbatch) descending upon Laketown. The citizens flee but nothing can stop the cataclysm - until a certain someone finds an ingenious way to pierce the beast. Then there's Nemesis #2: Sauron (also Cumberbatch). We get to see some familiar faces face-off with this faceless monstrosity.

The story then enters its most intriguing phase: a kind of psychodrama involving Thorin (Richard Armitage) and his sickening relationship with gold and power. It's the one time we really glimpse that signature Jackson oddness, in a wonderful hallucinatory sequence where Thorin imagines he's sinking in a lake of gold.

The narrative follows the book fairly closely. This was, after all, the stage of the story where Professor Tolkien finally foregrounded politics and ethics and the machinations of characters ahead of adventure. The film is at its most successful in the quieter moments, as Thranduil (a subtle Lee Pace) ponders the duty of the elves; as Bard (a brooding Luke Evans) comes to the gate of the mountain to plead for peace; and as Thorin struggles with his "dragon-sickness" (i.e. greed), while Bilbo wrestles with the dilemma of what to do with a certainly stolen gemstone.

Thorin was presented at first as this trilogy's Aragorn. But over time we've learned of the dangerous pride that ruined his grandfather. Thorin's hubris and arrogance are in stark contrast to Bilbo's very relatable and achievable traits of decency and humility. The gulf between them is intriguing and wisely plundered for drama. Armitage and Bilbo provide the best performances of the film - mostly internal; mostly in the eyes - and their farewell is one of the more moving moments in a trilogy that has largely prioritized humor over pathos.

The battle itself is undoubtedly impressive - great roaring hordes punctuated with spectacular giants - but in a sense, it compounds the problem of the relatively truncated runtime. What was already the shortest Middle-earth film is rendered artificially even shorter by the fact that there are 45 minutes of virtually wordless fighting. By now we should all be braced for Super Legolas and his physics-defying fighting style. That reaches new heights here; as he sprints up a crumbling bridge like he's on the wrong escalator, it's like some sort of visual satire on the weightlessness of CGI.

With its last bastion and swarming armies, the titular battle resembles The Return of the King's Pelennor finale - yet that movie took a breath between its showdowns. Galadriel vs. Sauron; Legolas vs. Bolg; Thorin vs. Azog... it's like we're watching someone finish off a video game but we're powerless to stop them skipping the tension- or character-building cutscenes. Moreover, the dubious editing decisions create some strange and jolting juxtapositions and tonal lurches and negate the sense of time passing or of great distances being crossed.

The result is a film that really earns its status of "theatrical cut", insofar as it resembles many a boisterous blockbuster. This is fairly damning criticism for a Middle-earth movie, usually so luxurious and layered in its sense of a unique world. There's plenty of meat here - but where are the bones that hold it all together? 11 months away, perhaps.

What a massive step backwards! This film felt unnecessary. I just don't understand why it couldn't have been condensed and incorporated into the other two films. I found myself bored after Smaug is dealt with in The series. The actual Battle of the Five Armies was just dreadful. The CGI was not good and I felt that Peter Jackson kind of phoned it in on this one. The stand out performance was of Richard Armitage as Thorin Oakenshield. Watching him descend into madness as he is lost to the sickness of greed was captivating to watch. Also, Martin Freeman continued his great performance as Bilbo Baggins. The character has been a Lord of the Rings staple since the conception of the books. This does not stop here. They are a big reason this got all the way up to 50% for me. Without their performances I would have given it a much lower score. It is a real shame to watch the trilogy end this way. Starting strong and just ending mediocre at best. Peter Jackson has grown bored with this franchise and it shows in droves. I look forward to what the man has in store for us next, outside the realm of Middle Earth. The bright spots of acting really shine, while the dark spots of boredom and bad visuals really stick out like a sore thumb. The worst of the Middle Earth saga for sure.