Review of The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (2014) by Magda P — 01 Nov 2016

I find that this movie is often unjustifiably hated because it's not Return of The King. Now, I will admit that the CGI was WAY overdone and that there was far too much content put into this trilogy. However, at least it wasn't bad content. Think of it this way, the Hobbit book was a 1,000 piece puzzle, and the movies we're a 3D hologram 2,000 piece expansion pack to that original puzzle. Was it a bit much? Oh yeah, but was it bad? Not really. We need to understand that "bad" is a word that should be used for movies like Attack of The Clones and the recent Fantastic 4. In Battle of The Five Armies, there was nothing obviously atrocious, just inappropriate. There were no "I hate sand" kind of lines or "Jar Jar" like characters. Any lines that were given to the actors were properly executed and were well written. Honestly, the movie was very well casted. However, because it all deviated from the core story of Bilbo and the Dwarves and simply served as LOTR exposition most of the time, it dragged on quite a bit. And again, the CGI was ridiculous, but not completely unforgivable. Personally, I thought there was more good than bad in this film. Most notably when Thorin had his battle with Azog the Defiler. Anybody who read the book was waiting for this moment particularly and I thought it was executed outstandingly. Also, watching Elrond and Saruman kick arse in that one scene was awesome. There's no argument that could convince me otherwise.

I wish people would finally come to terms that the LOTR trilogy is on it's own level and would just stop comparing films to it because there's not one movie that will ever live up to such a standard. I don't even rank those films because they're THAT good. So with the Hobbit trilogy, just pick up the popcorn and enjoy it for what it is. A fun, middle-earth adventure! And if you really hate it because you're a book-snob, then watch the Tolkien edit. However, if you do, I really think you'd be missing out on some great scenes that help the overarching story of the Battle of The Five Armies as well as the rest of the Hobbit Trilogy. I thought these films were great fun to watch and are definitely worth buying on blu-ray or digital HD.