Review of The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (2014) by Austerus — 20 Dec 2014

This movie is total injustice done to the Middle Earth universe and I took off points for being so far off an appropriate ending to the Jackson's Middle Earth saga.

Let's skip the fact that it's pointlessly bloated, focusing on stuff that's not part of the story (pointless elf/dwarf romance instead of the closure of returning Thorin's body and Arkenstone to Erebor) and have a look at what this movie is: a pure comedy. Compared to the Battle of The 5 Armies, the first Hobbit movie was a masterpiece (I definitely liked the first one as a proper Middle Earth piece, this one feels like a mess stitched in an attempt to be presentable).

There are some really funny moments that simply weren't meant to be like:

- Smaug's death reminded me of Mulan's Mushu the fire lizard: freeze, twitch, dramatically cough and fall flat, just like he got squashed in mid-air. Kind of like my cat when he runs out of energy after playing.

- Thorin is cheaply demonised (he simply goes crazy for no apparent reason, while in the book he's more ambiguous - unfair to people of Laketown because they seem to associate with elves who have no justification for their demands).

- Thranduil, majestic as *bleep*, doesn't seem phased by being in a fight (his hair remains perfect, tiara unmoved) - really, now?

- Legolas jumps on falling rocks like he's the Prince of Persia. That was hilarious!

- Were-worms pop out, roar and never to be seen again. Just like they realized they need to return to Dune!

- We get a really looooong shot of dying Kili. He dies, it's dramatic, but after a few seconds of drama he runs out of faces to make. I was expecting The Mask to pop-out of somewhere and demand an Oscar for this performance.

- Gandalf sighs and poofs with every opportunity, rolling his eyes and pausing for cheap effect. Not at all necessary.

- Tauriel drops orcs in a stride with two slashes at most, but gets bested out of the blue after poking the last one 5 times? Get real!

- Alfrid has no point in existing, at all. His comic relief made me think of Seth Rogen or Sascha Baron Cohen ... in a fantasy battle! Why torture the audience like that?

- The orcs are cut off cardboard, Defiler included. In the original TRilogy they had some personality, here they're nothing but props.

- THorin's group was all armored, helmets on and whatnot inside the mountain but when finally decided to fight they left all the battle gear behind. Huh?

- What happened to the Arkenstone? Bard just kept it? That's what the movie suggests (yeah, I read the book, I know what happens *there*).

- What happened with the gold, promises, etc? They spend 3/4 of the movie fighting over it and then just forget it?

Otherwise, the FX are nice, most of the battle is entertaining but the move lacks substance through and through. The first Hobbit was far superior and I really wish Jackson hadn't tortured me with this underachieving mutant, that's not how I want to remember his Middle Earth. The drama is artificial, cheap and the attempts at humor (where intentional) are even worse.