The
ridiculous notion of the studios to split a book half the length of The Lord of
the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring into three movies (especially since the
movie adaptation of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring was only
one movie) has had its effects on all of the movies. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey was not received well by hardcore
fans of The Lord of the Rings
franchise due to its large pacing issues, being that the movie was only the
first few chapter of the book. The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug added in characters that were not in the
book - Legolas (Orlando Bloom; a key character in The Lord of the Rings) and
Tauriel (Evangeline Lilly) - in order to add excitement and length the run time
of the film. Because of that, it was received much better. The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies unfortunately has a
problem that is not fixed, like the first. Being the third and final part, in which
everything goes down, it becomes mostly payoff with no exposition and buildup,
only action. Because of this, the action scenes become exponentially less
exciting and exhilarating due to the lack of emotion and motivation behind the
events. The Lord of the Rings: The Returnof the King, being the third and final part in which everything goes down, went
in with the possibility of the same problems being in the final product.
However, that movie took its time to further develop characters and add
motivation, substance, and depth to its action. Because of this, that is a
fantastic movie. This is a very flawed one.
The Hobbit:
The Battle of the Five Armies is the grand finale of The Hobbit trilogy in which everything built up to in the previous
two films goes down, as already stated. This movie picks up right after the
last, with Smaug having an effect on things due to the events at the close of
the last film. Then, we have the elves, dwarves, and orcs all trying to gain control
of the abandoned but newly re-inhabited Dwarf Kingdom Erebor in what turns out
to be The Battle of the Five Armies.
This movie
has a lot going for it. Its undeniably high budget contributes to some amazing
scenes filled with spectacle. This film is very good-looking; the
cinematography is very good. And some of the visual effects are great; some of
them… Because some are very disappointingly obvious. There is some lazy,
full-body CGI that does not work. It is so easy to tell that it is a computer
generated image and it takes you out of the movie. Luckily, not all of the CGI
is like that, though.
Anyway, the
action in this movie is fantastic. Many shots in it are excellent. And there
are hints of the genius, excellent filmmaking used in The Lord of the Rings
trilogy that made it so great. It is disappointing that there are not many
times, but there are some when it shows. But besides that, the action is
exhilarating and not-at-all boring. But as stated above, it could have been so
much better if there was substance behind because there is little. Although the
action is great, the drama is terrible.
There is a
lot of drama with Thorin (Richard Armitage) and what his character goes through. It is completely
rushed and no character arcs are shown. In fact, it is like that with all
characters. They go from Point A to Point B to Point C, all with no depth.
Therefore, it becomes obvious that they are just used to advance the plot. And
when there are rare scenes dedicated to the characters, they are the most convenient,
clichéd and predictable scenes there are. They don’t reflect the nature of a
living being in that situation at all (I would just say human nature, but since
we’re dealing with dwarves and elves here, I can’t).
A lot of the
motivations for the eventual Battle of the Five Armies come from the elfish and
dwarfish hate for each other. This hate is very much expressed in the leaders
of each army to a maddening level. The motivation is taken to an extreme that
is not realistic, and in that it again shows us, the audience, that these
characters are just plot devices with no depth but the one distinguishing factor
that he/she is given to advance the plot. And this is even taken into the
battle, after the plot has already gone in a different direction.
All of these
scenarios are rare times when there is actually is an attempt for depth. The
majority of the time, there is no depth. The film has as little as possible.
Very convenient things happen so that the movie does not have to show things
that are not yet completed and are in the works. A process of something
happening or something lining up for something to happen is almost never shown.
The armies seem to just appear out of nowhere and be ready, randomly. The
buildup is so quick and rushed that the battle seems to come out of a dramatic
scene. No real conflict is introduced; just an army.
And it felt like
major portions of the end of the battle were just left out. After a while, the
grand scope of the battle is taken from the audience and we never see it again.
It felt like scenes were just deleted from the movie, so the last half hour of
it seem very rushed so we can have a nice ending wrapped in a bow to lead into
The Lord of the Rings. You just have to assume some things happened, and then
the credits start.
Although the
past four paragraphs have been making it sound like I think of the movie negatively,
from my rating it’s obvious that I don’t. I really enjoyed watching this movie
and was engrossed into the action, no matter how much depth it didn’t have. All
of action scenes are done with fantastic direction by Peter Jackson, who is the
King of the Vision of Middle Earth. His vision of this place makes it seem like
a real place and his direction of the action scenes makes the battle so
excellent and fun to watch. The sequences are exhilarating, despite the room
for improvement.
Overall, I
think this is an alright movie. It is in fact my least favorite Middle Earth (The
Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit) movie, but An Unexpected Journey is just
above it by a little. I wouldn’t really mind watching it again because of how
fun it is, but some elements beyond the entertainment value of the movie are
very flawed.