Review of The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (2014) by Slumboodi — 24 Dec 2014

The final entry to "The Hobbit" will leave you flabbergasted. The utterly incredulous "Trilogy" has finally hit rock bottom. Lines of actual dialogue are so few and far between that one can forget that the garbage in front of you is in fact a film, not a computer game. The characters are woefully underdeveloped as a result, and it is impossible to sympathise or care about almost anyone. The initial bit with Smaug was ok until he went all monologue **** on us and started the cliché "bad guy talks to much before he gets undone by a seemingly impossible feat" scenario.

As I've hinted, my biggest problem with this film is the absurd special effects. There is so much going on, and the shots so short - you barely have time to understand what the **** is happening. The aerial shots overlooking the battlefield are done so from such a distance, it is near impossible to tell what any army is doing beyond the first 3 minutes of fighting. Everything down to the loading of arrows, dwarf shield walls, Orc charges, or anything else in the battle worth mentioning is done with a computer.

I'd have really enjoyed actual people forming up a Dwarven shield wall, or loosing a volley of arrows, but it was not to be...

The "journey" that Thorin Oakenshield coming back from near insanity took approximately 3 days of my life in energy to care. The sequence when he comes back from the brink of insanity (walking around on the gold floor yada yada yada) is about 180 seconds of close shots of his glowing face, followed by a huge spanning shot of the room he is in. I chose this moment to use the toilet, and believe it or not, he was still ****ing around there when I came back.

I can't remember if this character was in the book, its been so long, but lets take a moment to talk about "Alfrid" played by Ryan Gage". Scratch that, I went and looked it up. He is an unnamed, barely mentioned character in the books. So why in ****s sake are we subjected to one of the biggest **** in film history? There is just no reason for him to be such an utter **** His plot within the film is totally inconsequential, ending with him running off dressed as a woman with boobs of gold. No I'm not kidding. His purpose, as far as I can gather, is to fill 15+ minutes of dialogue mainly showing just how much of a **** he is.

My final rant, because I just can't bring myself to remember and write about more of this diabolical film, is of course about a particular character. I saved the best till last..... in a sense.

Orlando Bloom. I think you are great. You are a funny guy and obviously switched on. Great in Pirates of The Caribbean, smashing in LOTR trilogy, and I especially enjoyed your performance in Extras (Ricky Gervais). With that in mind then...

What the **** was Peter Jackson thinking? Ok, I get that you have to option to include Legolas, seeing as he would have been around, but like... What the **** was he doing?

During this one film Legolas managed to:

- Fly on a bat thing up into some ruins.

- Drop 30m onto a troll then "Ratatouille" style 'drive' the troll (substituting hair for knives in the trolls shoulders).

- Defy the laws of physics on several occasions.

- Slow motion run up a flight of stairs...........that are falling. Anyone with a braincell can work out why that is ****ing ridiculous, and that's saying something seeing as we are in a world riddled with magic.

So my main point here is, there is such a fantastic array of things that you could have done within the realms of the world you are bringing to cinema. Indeed, Peter Jackson has the ability to access one of the most interesting, descriptive and magical worlds ever written about. Why did you have to include such utter **** alongside it?

Other gripes include, but are not limited to:

- The endless fight scene between Thorin and Azog. I naively thought it was a really cool way to end the fight, by Thorin simply stepping off the precarious ice shard they were both balanced on. Only to have my enthusiasm crushed when his stupid ****ing face showed up under the ice... and cliché "bad guys eyes open again when you think he's dead".

- The **** with Legolas being told to go find "strider". At the time of that conversation, Aragon was 10 years old, and where did Aragon grow up? ****ing Rivendell. Thanks for the nostalgic **** Peter.

- Finally, towards the end of the film... which may seem to take months, Gandalf makes a quip to Bilbo about his knowledge of the ring? So why would he wait 60ish years to rush off to Minas Tirith to read old scrolls documenting the ring? The answer is... he doesn't. He doesn't know about the ring until he sees Bilbo vanish completely on his 111th Birthday.

Today I paid £8 to let Peter Jackson **** in my eyes and ears. I shan't make that mistake again.