The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies - Falcon's Blog

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

Greetings, for the first blog update of 2015 I have chosen to write about the last Hobbit movie. For me, the previous entries in the Hobbit series have not lived up to the same quality of LOTR and the Battle of the Five Armies is no exception. Throughout the entire trilogy I have found it difficult to make distinctions between the dwarves as they don’t seem to have any unique personalities or original characteristics besides Thorin Oakenshield. As such it made it difficult to care or sympathize with the character’s motives or their ultimate fate and therefore impacted on the experience of the movie. This film in particular included many unnecessary scenes that seemed to function only as fan service rather than adding anything to the plot. The fight between Gandalf and his allies against the Nazgul is a prominent example of this as it didn’t enhance the story.

There is little to the plot and is the film is essentially an extended fight scene. It starts with Smaug destroying Laketown until he is killed Bard in the first fifteen minutes of the story. With Laketown reduced to debris by Smaug’s smouldering fire, Bard plans to lead his people to the ruins of Dale in the hopes of seeking shelter. In his search for the Arkenstone the leader of the Dwarves, Thorin Oakenshield, has succumbed to Dragon sickness. In his madness he orders the Lonely Mountains to be shut down until the stone is found in the complex as he is unaware that Bilbo is keeping it from him. Bilbo is concerned that Thorin would suffer insane if he were to have the Arkenstone that he desired. The Elves Legolas and Taureil, watch the march of Bolg’s army of Orcs to Erebore. Bolg is an ally of the primary Orc villain named Azog and has appeared in all three films but was played by different actors each time. It should be noted that the original character of Taureil is involved in a love triangle between Legolas and Kili the Dwarf, an aspect that was not in the original books.

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

Gandalf is freed from his imprisonment in Dol Guldur at the hands of Sauron by Galadriel, Elrond and Saruman. Sauron makes a brief cameo appearance and the scene suggests the establishment of Saruman and Sauron’s alliance. Outside the Dwarves’ fortress, the Elf king Thranduil, played by Lee Pace, brings his army to the Lonely Mountain with the intention of reclaiming some of the treasure. He forms an alliance with Bard and they attempt to seek a peaceful arrangement to settle the dispute. Throin, in his sickness, does not let them in to Erebore and sparks off the conflict. It is revealed that Oakenshield has called on his cousin named Dain, portrayed by Billy Connelly, to send military aid. Bolg’s army also arrive to the battle and provide a common enemy for the Dwarves, Elves and humans to fight against.

Overall, the film is by no means a classic movie. The music, unlike the LOTR OST, was forgettable bar Billy Boyd’s performance in the credits. Jackson’s use of CGI seemed excessive in comparison to what he had achieved in the LOTR trilogy .The entire trilogy seems to be an unnecessary addition to the previous films and is too drawn out in my opinion. I believe that the story could have been improved by being contained within one film instead of three. The future of the series is uncertain as I am not sure if Peter Jackson has any plans for adapting any of the other novels.

Plot=6/10

Characters=7/10

Special Effects=7/10

Overall=7/10

Quote of the Day

Not if we hold true to each other. We will not abandon Merry and Pippin to torment and death. Not while we have strength left. Leave all that can be spared behind. We travel light. Let's hunt some Orc!

Aragorn

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

Written by Falcon, Sunday 18 January 2015

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Falcon  10 year(s) ago (120 months)

Thanks for the comments. It looks like we seem to have similar opinions about the last instalment in the Hobbit trilogy.

 
Aaron  10 year(s) ago (120 months)

I definitely think this movie felt very stretched. The fight scene towards the end seemed never-ending, and the CGI was both over-used and fairly mediocre. Still, I guess there are worse films out there. Nicely reviewed!

 
Brisingr  10 year(s) ago (120 months)

Agree with most of your points. The quality of this series was nowhere near the standard of the LOTR trilogy. This last film in particular seems to have a lot of fan service added into it, making for some really stupid scenes. The whole film felt like a drawn out battle scene which became boring half way through. Its a shame really as they did have some amazingly talented actors at their disposal but failed to produce anything worth watching.

I think if Mr.Jackson had of had the same self control that he displayed with LOTR then we could have seen something very special. Instead we are left with this sub-par trilogy. Nice article.

 
Joh  10 year(s) ago (120 months)

Nice review, and I agree with all your points. The Hobbit movies were no where near as good as the Lord of the Rings movies and this one did have a lot of pointless and overly long scenes. I'd say I still enjoyed the trilogy overall and while none of the movies were particularly amazing, I did think they were all good at least.