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

• A big disappointment.

  syes972014-12-11

  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's 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 Alfrid 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. SPOILERS AFTER THIS LINE 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 from 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 grieving over the characters you love so much.

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• I have no idea what happened

  account-184-1256112014-12-13

  I should begin by saying that I am a big fan of Tolkiens work, and have read LOTR and The Hobbit (and his other books) many times. I did enjoy the first trilogy, and thought that the changes Jackson did to the story were sometimes understandable, sometimes acceptable. However, I have no idea what happened with this movie and the whole second trilogy. I am terribly disappointed, and I have no idea whether the changes were necessary simply to milk as much money as possible out of the whole project (spreading out the story to get 3 long movies, even if that meant adding many new things), or whether Jackson actually thinks he knows better than Tolkien... knows better how to explain things, how to connect the Hobbit to LOTR, or how to make a compelling story. And yes, an adaption doesn't HAVE to be close to the book. However, if you mess with the story, if you include things that contradict the whole story, and if you essentially kill off the charm and warmth and concept of the book the movie is based on, things get dangerous. The Hobbit was a book written for children, and while there are scenes in the trilogy that will definitely be fun for children (the dwarfs offering a lot of those kinda scenes), the violence and amount of killing and cut off heads make me wonder how suitable the movie really is. However, watching this movie, and having seen the previous ones, these questions came up in my mind: What went wrong? Did Jackson think that, in order to attract and convince all those that haven't read the books, he would need to turn a wonderful book, written for children with a lot of warmth and charm, into a medieval Transformers (regarding amount of CGI, length of fights, lack of realism, character depth and taste)? Did he really think this was in any way a respectful adaption of the work of a man who invested DECADES into writing, refining and perfecting his stories? Who, instead of focusing on just hours of battle, managed to create a world full of lore, charm, and wonderful characters? I have no idea what went wrong behind the scenes. Have no idea whether the movie studio said "Jackson, forget about what people love about the Hobbit. Turn it into three overlong movies for more profit, get us as many battles and skirmishes as you possibly can milk out of this, and just to make sure, add a love-story (we don't care how you do it), add a popular character from the previous trilogy so people will dig that. Oh yeah, the book was written for children, so make sure there is a song or two, bird poo on the nutty wizard who escaped from Hogwarts (Radagast), a dwarf with a pickax stuck in his skull, and funny bits that children love. But don't forget we want adults to watch it too, so please, add tons of action and cut-off heads, too... gotta hit all those demographics". I know a lot of Tolkien-fans apparently love this movie and the trilogy. One review even said "...from a true fan". Please don't think this is the case in general. I have grown up reading Tolkiens work, and I am simply stunned by how bad, how tasteless and disrespectful this trilogy is.

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• The Hobbit The Battle of the Five Armies: Despite being the most poorly received it stands as my favorite

  Platypuschow2017-12-01

  I was distinctly underwhelmed by the first two Hobbit movies, I thought they were good but just that "Good". They live in the shadow of the Lord Of The Rings movies and simply paled in comparison and so going into The Battle Of The Five Armies I expected more of the same. According to both IMDb and the profit margin this was the most poorly received of the franchise, clearly people did not like the film by comparison. But as usual, I have to be different. I consider this to not only be the best of the Hobbit franchise but also hot on the heels in quality as the LOTR trilogy. The story culminates beautifully and if you can get past the many changes that were made you'll see the finale of a wondrous tale and a battle on screen that blew me away. Once again the fantastic cast, stunning score, mind blowing effects and sheer beauty envelope you into the world of Middle Earth and I was gripped. Yes its not flawless, but it is pretty damn close. The Good: Amazing opening Action scenes are brutal James Nesbitt Evangeline Lilly The Bad: Still a lot of changes Fili's death was poorly done

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• The Hobbit: Battle of the Dwarfs, Elves, Orcs, Humans, Trolls, Giant Worms, Pigs, Goats, Eagles, and Anything Else That Peter Jackson Thought Would Make Money

  Swisschick092014-12-18

  I was as irritated as most people when I heard that Peter Jackson would split The Hobbit into three movies because it was obviously a decision based on nothing more than getting as much money as possible, but even I never imagined that he would stoop to making a movie like Battle of the Five Armies (a.k.a. Battle of the 25 Armies plus a couple of random giant mountain goats and a pig thrown in for good measure). The CGI was as bad as something you would see in a B movie—even worse than the previous two Hobbit films. But even more noticeably, the script took a dive to rock bottom. Within the first half hour, such utterly laughable clichés as "You make me feel alive," were spoken in a cheesy love scene that seemed like something straight out of Saturday Night Live, except that the audience was apparently supposed to take it seriously. Shortly before the battle started, there were a few much-needed moments of comic relief, and I thought the film might possibly turn around. But all my illusions were soon shattered during the ten-minute scene where Thorin walks on top of the ice that Azog is floating under with his eyes open, following the orc and apparently waiting for him to break through it, when—surprise!—he does, and (spoiler for those who have not yet watched the ten-minute scene that made this obvious) kills Thorin. Alas. It might have been sad if I hadn't been waiting around for ten minutes knowing that he would get killed. Things were looking grim for the dwarfs when who should appear? Our heroes the eagles, of course, who have managed to bail out the protagonists in every single movie of the trilogy. Although I couldn't stop laughing during the scene where three dwarfs find completely random giant mountain goats with no riders in the middle of the battle and proceed to ride them up a mountain, the worst part of the movie was easily the ending. As if the movie isn't long enough, the audience is not only forced to watch Bilbo go all the way BACK to the Shire, they have to re-watch footage from Fellowship of the Ring! I knew it was a bad sign that Peter Jackson actually made a movie shorter than three hours (although it felt like six)—apparently, he had so little material for this movie that he had to re-use material from his original trilogy. When Tauriel discusses love with the abominably clichéd line "Why does it hurt so much?" I think she described the feelings of most of the audience enduring the latest Hobbit movie.

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• Unequivocally Terrible

  knowinglygotebola2014-12-27

  Peter Jackson, with this new trilogy, which adapts a somewhat long children's fairy tale into a three-part action epic, each movie being three hours long and delving into completely irrelevant stories that are only hinted at in Tolkien's body of work, has really destroyed his reputation as the Tolkien translator. He will always live in the shadow of The Lord of the Rings, which is a sumptuous, beautiful, heartrending, thrilling masterpiece. I don't know what happened. But Jackson sacrificed tone, realism, characterization, and story when he adapted The Hobbit. It is unrecognizable as work by the same director. There are so many problems with this trilogy and this movie that is nigh impossible to list them. Nearly every scene is a real travesty, and the whole operation is an affront to the source material and fans of LOTR. The movies make hyper-violent beheadings and mass slaughter into orgies of staged action sequences and dumb gags. The orcs, which are now entirely computer-generated, are no longer compelling or realistic, and they are seemingly significantly more fearsome than in LOTR... It takes what the audience understands about Middle Earth and makes it BIGGER, in a completely childish overextension of the original story, to make things even more epic! Were-worms and enormous bats - these don't exist in the larger and more climactic battle in LOTR, but sure, they existed back then, right? Sure! Jackson also turns characters into absolutely ridiculous flat caricatures. Thranduil, the bourgeois blue-blood riding an elk, Dain, Thorin's cousin, who rests his enormous high- pitched Scottish girth on a wild boar, the she- elf who falls in love with a dwarf... It's stomach churning how Peter Jackson has combined a love for extreme violence and an eye for juvenile gags and unbelievable characters, and in a beloved, classic setting. This movie, once again, extends Legolas past human bounds, past elven bounds, past the bounds of Newtonian physics, as he sprints, newly cyan eyes shining, on falling bricks and hangs from bats. We get to watch dwarfs behead seiging armies of orcs, who are impotent to the blows of the tiny Olympians. Again, oh no!, Middle Earth is doomed, the age of men is over, (cue slow-motion shots of Gandalf looking stricken, Thorin killing orcs with Sparta kicks)... The feel, the script, the look is all taken from LOTR and rehashed with this cast of cardboard characters, in a badly rendered world of excess and fancy. I expected mature film-making for thoughtful audiences expecting real characters living in a real world with a compelling story, but obviously that was too much to expect. If one of the important themes of The Hobbit is the rejection of greed, as we can see personified by Thorin, then is it hypocritical that Hollywood has churned out three abominably shallow and violent films out of The Hobbit for the public's consumption? I think so. I hate what these films represent, and what they could have done.

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