The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies – review

The third chapter of The Hobbit trilogy, The Battle of the Five Armies, continues the adventure after the events of The Desolation of Smaug.  If you are a fan of epic battles scenes then this movie will be great for you; if you are expecting a Hobbit movie, it falls short. This chapter is nothing that hasn’t been done better in films like Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.

The dragon, Smaug, has gone to Laketown to speak in volumes of napalm to the villagers.  The dwarves have taken refuge in the city of Erebor in the Lonely Mountain. They find that they are now sitting on a wealth of gold and treasures. Armies of Orcs and Goblins are on their way and groups of elves, men, and dwarves all want a piece of the dragon hoard.

The movie has a few good things working to its advantage. The acting is decent and the monster designs are pretty nightmarish. Guillermo del Toro’s influence is felt in this chapter as the Orcs have terrifying glowing eyes and there are trolls with limbs removed and replaced with weapons as if they were pulled out of a Hellraiser film.

The biggest problem with this film is that it is called The Hobbit and Bilbo Baggins plays a minor character in his own story. About 90% of this film is about the Humans, Dwarves, Elves, and long battle scenes among them. There are so many padded scenes that this movie could be used as shipping material.  Some of the battle scenes are fun to watch but, more often that not, it comes off like a video game cut scene.

This trilogy is the biggest insult to fans of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. It takes a story that could have easily made a single great film and bloats it into three mediocre movies. The characters that are interesting, like Bilbo and Smaug, barely get as much screen time as Thorin or the more annoying Wormtongue stand-in, Alfrid. The attention to detail is not even present in these films. Legolas’s eye color changes between scenes in the films. Director Peter Jackson even admitted they forgot to put in his colored contacts several times.

This movie is worth seeing if you are a big fan of the series. If you are not than you will find other versions of this story that won’t take 9 hours to tell. The effects are fairly laughable and the fan-service by adding in characters like Legolas and the new character of Tauriel are just too obviously filler material.  

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug – review

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug is better than the movie that preceded it, but it still pales in comparison to the Lord of the Rings movies.  While visually interesting and having good acting, there are loads of scenes and side plots to this story that are really obvious filler material.  The movie force-feeds fan service to the audience in the hopes that their familiarity with the Lord of the Rings will make them enjoy it more.  It sadly reminds me of Star Wars trilogy in that respect.

Bilbo Baggins, played by Martin Freeman, travels with his 13 dwarf companions and Gandalf, played by Ian McKellen, toward the Lonely Mountain and Smaug the dragon. They must enter the Mirkwood forest and face many dangers.  Gandalf must also address an issue with a Necromancer bringing evil to Middle Earth. They need to show courage and ingenuity in order to get to the Lonely Mountain and face the terrible dragon.

The acting is pretty decent for this chapter.  Martin Freeman is good at bringing heart to Bilbo Baggins.  The One Ring is taking its toll on him and it shows. For the most part everyone else just seems to be going through the motions.  The effects and the action scenes are at least pretty fun to watch.  The amount of CGI is a bit crazy at times, making it almost as if you are watching a cartoon.

This movie makes it painfully obvious that The Hobbit did not need to be broken into a trilogy.  They add a pointless romance between a female elf that was not in the book, with one of the dwarves.  They also put in a scene with Beorn, the skin-changer, which adds nothing to the story. Adding Legolas and talking about Gimli is just fan-service that also is not needed.  As if that isn’t enough, giving the character of the Necromancer multiple scenes was certainly unnecessary.

There are plenty of versions of this story that have been told that don’t require splitting the book into multiple stories.  The fact that Peter Jackson had to add so much filler makes the “cash grab” painfully obvious.  At the very least, some elements of this movie are entertaining.  It is worth seeing if you are a fan of the last movie-as it a lot more entertaining.  I would just recommend catching it as a matinee or waiting until the entire trilogy comes out and getting to see it altogether.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey- review

Peter Jackson brings us back to Middle Earth in the tale that preceded the hit Lord of the Rings trilogy.  This time, the single book has been broken into three separate films.  It’s a good movie with decent visuals.  It is however, filled with padding that could’ve either been edited into two movies or at the very least given another round through the editor’s booth.

Bilbo Baggins reminisces to Frodo about his adventures with Gandalf and the company of dwarves.  As he is remembering he turns into a younger version of himself, played by Martin Freeman. Bilbo recalls being hired as a burglar by Gandalf, played by Sir Ian McKellan, to help a group of dwarves reclaim their homeland from the dragon Smaug. He faces many challenges and goes out of his comfort-zone for this great adventure.

Martin Freeman does a fine job as Bilbo. It’s great to see many of the old characters again. Andy Serkis as Gollum is great and the CGI on him has improved sharply. The problem is that the new characters are fairly forgettable at this point. Even after lots and lots of padding, the dwarves are easy to forget.  

The length of this movie causes a major problem. The long hours of The Lord of the Rings movies worked because the threat of Sauron was so immense. In The Hobbit, the threat is localized to the characters themselves and is harder to identify with- a dragon that stole the gold of the dwarves. It’s not nearly as epic.  The simple fact is that The Lord of the Rings trilogy raised the bar really high and it’s going to take a lot to get to that level again.

If you are a fan of the book you will enjoy this movie.  If you enjoyed The Lord of the Rings movies you will most likely find this one to be the weakest of the series.  The series still might get better. The dragon Smaug was barely shown, leaving me to really anticipate The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. I have a feeling there is a lot more action yet to come.  At the very least see it as a matinee.