Review of The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (2014) by Nms1215 — 18 Dec 2014

This movie is probably the best of each. While the complaints are still there--over the top CGI, laughable stunts, and too much freedom with the source content. They are all still there, but to a lesser degree--the CGI has definitely improved, the stunts are still laughable but much much shorter, and they spent less time trying to make this about The White Council (they have just one real scene together).

My complaints are simple: the love triangle was awful and never worked, despite Tauriel being a decent character; there are times where the movie (intentionally) makes you laugh only to instantly cut to the slaughter civilians (it was very awkward); they also were very heavy-handed with the corruption of greed (we got it, a million times over); not enough Dwarf character development (something they have continually failed at).

It was still a good, fun movie. It did a good job of emphasizing events that did lead to the LOTR series--especially with showing how the ring is slowly and subtly corrupting Bilbo--without taking away from the there and now. However, this is a battle movie. There is action, combat, explosions and destruction. Peter Jackson, IMO unfortunately, focused on these instead of the great characters he had to work with. To this day, none of the fans of the films (that have not read the books) know the names of the dwarves besides Thorin and Kili (and by extension, Fili).