The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

Good but it was dragged on a lot. A lot of people didnt like this movie but nothing can ever come close to LOTR and it will always be in its shadow. If LOTR hadnt been made yet this would have been a great movie but unfortunately it wasn't up to the same standard and should have been but you have to remember Peter Jackson will always be one of the best directors ever.Overall I think that this was a good movie but wasn't up to the standard that it should have been

I really enjoyed the first two. I don't buy into the criticism that a 300 page book couldn't be made into a full blown trilogy. That said, I found the last episode way too full of battle scenes and gratuitous violence, big armies banging into each other, terrible orcs riding wolves, and the ultimate confrontation. In the process, all the charm that had been built up in the first two movies seemed to be dropped for a bunch of special effects. It starts well with the appearance of Smaug who fulfills his promise of destroying the town. But after that its a hodge-podge of romance and revenge and ultimately death. As this one ended, I literally felt, "Oh, is that the end?" Having read "The Hobbit" a couple of times, I knew what was going to happen, but it didn't quite work the way I thought it would. There was just something empty. Don't get me wrong, I could revel in the effort, but I can't say that this will stay with me for a long time.

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

One death was poorly done.

Now I personally enjoyed the first two hobbit instalments as much as each movie of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, though without a shadow of a doubt the original trilogy is far superior (probably due to the fact the book it is based on, is far stronger) I still find each of them incredible films and after the agonising and excruciating cliff- hanger of the Desolation Of Smaug, I was highly anticipating the third concluding chapter: The Battle of the Five Armies.

The Battle of the Five Armies forsakes the tradition of prologues that would often go back in time from the main narrative and instead thrusts us into the action, sending us with a flurry of excitement into Smaug's attack on Laketown, it is truly a spectacle to watch, building up the suspense and then being the perfect pulse racing build up and is one of the standout set pieces of the year as we finally see Smaug the terrible lay wake to the town, and as the title card appears over the ruined Erebor, the film continues to be the ultimate goodbye to Middle Earth, high on energy, whizzing through scenes at a breakneck pace until the credits roll.

In an attempt not to reveal any spoilers about the film, I will not delve into anymore of the plot events, needless to say this movie has countless scenes that Jackson is known for. He masterfully strings together the best elements of his Middle Earth films into one package. Amazing characters with brilliant performances, standout and beautiful settings and design of Middle Earth, a beautiful epic yet emotional soundtrack and of course: incredible action set pieces to make one visual masterpiece. Jackson who has had two films worth of build up really tests the characters to their limits. Thorin has more to do than ever before and Armitage plays the part perfectly, not to forget Martin Freeman, who has a stunning emotional moment which had the audience blubbering with tears. Whilst the previous cast all fulfill their roles masterfully, Evangeline Lilly and Aidan Turner both continue this slightly cliché romantic subplot but one that is given far more weight in this movie and really contributes to the plot this time and does not feel tacked on which did seem to occur with Desolation of Smaug.

The action as well is the best of the whole middle earth saga, the battle of the Five armies feels like Jackson looked at Minas Tirith, saw everything that worked and decided to turn it up a notch. Full of epic moments, awesome fights, giant armies clashing and the final showdown with the long awaited Thorin vs Azog does everything right with brilliant performances all around and the best one on one action scene in the series between Legolas and Bolg is a pure delight to watch.

The film for me embodied what I loved about: The lord of the rings. Whilst the action is marvellous and the best of the series, it's the emotional tone that ends the last ten minutes that makes The Battle of the Five armies such a brilliant goodbye as it is the end to the Hobbit tale, whilst still being a set up for the Lord of the rings and being one last farewell to the series that has touched so many viewers across the globe as Billy Boyd ends the series with a nostalgic note with his song.

My only few complaints is that much like in the Desolation of Smaug, the lonely mountain theme from An Unexpected journey does not appear, instead the 'house of durin theme' seems to be the most prominent, though I have understood it could be a copyright issue which in that case cannot be helped. Also though the film went by in a blur, I wish it could of been longer, most of the dwarfs don't get as much screen time as they should of and the ending feels like such a flash but perhaps that may be because I was desperate not to leave Jackson's middle earth vision for the last time, there was a lot of questions that were left unanswered admittedly and it does feel like they took the climax of the second movie, when the Hobbit was only two films and then extended it for as long as they could without overstaying their welcome, but these are all very minor gripes in what is a magnificent experience to see on the silver screen.

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies is the ultimate send off for the Middle Earth saga. In a trilogy where the quality of films has got progressively better, the Hobbit which easily could of been a supplement to the Lord of the rings, feels like a significant half of the Middle Earth saga. It's crammed with nolstagia, especially when Shore reuses some classic themes. There's some minor gripes but I frankly don't care, this is Middle Earth at it's finest and it ticked all the boxes of what I wanted to see and what I wanted it to do. It was an emotionally powerful, spectacle filled ending to the greatest fantasy cinematic series of all time.

The Battle of the Five Armies title is a great exaggeration of what an army entails. The movie is about more or less a skirmish with some rather imaginative weaponry. The plot goes sideways and after two three hours long previous films we get a two hours and a half mess that is half completely over the top battle scenes and the other half people talking out of their asses. It is pure chaos, where orcs are either mighty unbeatable beasts bred for war or cardboard armor wearing morons easily defeated by fishermen's wives and children, as the action demands. Things start to remind of Pirates of the Caribbean, and not only because it's the same actor doing kind of the same stuff.

There is even a prolonged ending with Bilbo Baggings returning to the Shire, almost as if wanting to undo the good idea in the Lord of the Rings movies in which they removed the boring book ending with Saruman taking refuge in the Shire, and that portrays hobbits as petty bureaucratic creatures, rather than kind and resilient and courageous as declared everywhere else in the films. If I enjoyed the first two movies and wanted to see how it will all end, the third was a ridiculous failure, trying to do too much with too little: making a country brawl look like an epic battle, keeping the lighter more children oriented tone while killing characters and trying to express deeper heroic emotions, trying to somehow raise on the same level three organized military groups and a bunch of fishermen and animals and tying up lose ends that were there only to make this a trilogy rather than a pair of decent movies.

It is now when all the jokes about the eagles made in good fun in the first two movies (and in Lord of the Rings as well) turn smirky, when the only logic to the plot and action seems to be the panic of production companies trying to achieve their financial goals rather than tell a good story. It is here where the disappointment that everyone talks about when referring to The Hobbit movies raises its ugly head and grows on the small mistakes of the previous two movies. So in order to enjoy the trilogy, one must somehow detach themselves from the ending and see it as an imperfect finish to an otherwise fun movie, maybe imagine their own.