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User Comments for: The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

xaliber says...
9 years ago
Perhaps because this movie tries hard to mirror Lord of the Rings - to be an "LoTR prequel" - it does not succeed too much in being a good movie.

First we get the continuation of Smaug's terror on the Laketown. This whole event that eventually leads to Smaug's demise feels so much hurried. We see Smaug ravaging the town, we see people fleeing in fear, but we don't see any actual horror preyed upon the people of Laketown. It feels like "just another dragon's burning routine on another town nearby". And the hero who is destined by blood to beat down dragon seems to have lost his mind when jumping straight into the tower without preparation. He even forgot to carry the legendary arrow!

Perhaps because the action, the tense, has been drown so much. When the great dragon is finally taken down, there is no sense of accomplishment at all. This Smaug scene should have been included in the previous movie. The film opens with a rather unsatisfying pace, a rather tedious 30 minutes, before diving into the main event which is the subtitle of this movie: "The Battle of the Five Armies".

This, as the subtitle indicates, should have been a grand event as much as the LoTR's Battle of the Black Gate or Battle of Pelennor fields. Especially since the movie tries so hard to be a LoTR's prequel: epic story of war and a rising darkness.

But nope. The battle itself is not as grandeur as LoTR. The occasional comic relief (like we usually see between Gimli and Legolas) does not work here either.

First, there is almost no buildup for the war. None. We suddenly get an elf army, Thorin's hard-headedness, his distant kin, all out of nowhere. We are presented with bunch of gold-hungry people ready for war without a strong reason to go for war. We see no explanation for Thranduil's hunger for their crown jewel (except for "it's our people's jewel") and so is for Thorin's sudden craziness for gold.

Thorin's greed is supposed to be the main theme of The Hobbit, but we only a slight clue leading to his greedy craziness. It was foreshadowed in the second movie and I was expecting it to be more laid out in this third movie.

Second, the war itself is rather... how to say it, just a clash of weapons. The pacing is very terrible. Especially when the orc armies finally came. The tense between the dwarves and elves were building prior to the orc's arrival, but it gets broken fast (the dwarves just go after the orcs very soon as if they're really that blood-thirsty). Also the title is "Battle of the Five Armies" but the ones who get into action are only dwarves, the elves, and the orcs. The human is just there struggling to survive and the eagles, the fifth army, came very late and were only shown in a flash. We don't even get a view how the war is resolved except for a distant view - a glimpse - that the orc's army is waning. We don't even told how is the Arkenstone - the supposed cause of the conflict - is doing after the war broke!

All this are accompanied with a too-often comic relief brought to you by Alfrid, the former Laketown mayor's second-in-command. Seriously he is really distracting. He bears no relevance to the story at all but the writer keeps bringing him up again and again.

Third, the ultimate showdown between Thorin and Azog is really disappointing. Thorin, who bears so much grudge with the orc who killed his grandfather, fights with no passion at all. The hot-blooded guy who we usually see being rash to many people, do not seem to show his contempt to the very person who brought death to his own family! As a king with remarkable combat prowess, Thorin also looks really clumsy fighting Azog, like his previous combat experience has just gone suddenly.

I just can't understand how easy he thought Azog was dead. I mean it's Azog; it's the guy who he knows himself (indicated in the previous two movies) is very hard to kill. He doesn't even bother to deal a finishing blow and hopes freeze will caught Azog dead! It's like the burning passion in his eyes, when he met Azog face-to-face in the forest (in the previous movie), it's like... it's like that passion has just gone. Gone with the wind.

Last, the epilogue. The dialogue between Tauriel and Thranduil when she is mourning is REALLY REALLY cheesy ("because it was real," really?). Thranduil also sounds so confusingly random when Legolas decides to go ("your mother loves you"... so? Wasn't it Tauriel who brought up the whole "love" stuff?).

It's such a shame because the first and second movie are at least decent.
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Reply by zavan
9 years ago
That's exactly how I feel.
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marcello.neves2 says...
8 years ago
Espetacular com seus efeitos especiais fez desse filme o melhor de o Hobbit.
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lloydle32 says...
CONTAINS SPOILERS
9 years ago
movie night
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Flaneurgh says...
9 years ago
Disappointing on so many levels.
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reto1962 says...
9 years ago
Ok, it Looks like i'm the fanboy here...
I really liked this film it a lot. A rewatch in the Cinema is at Hand.
I don't see that this film was unneccessary, now it's a round Story.
And i like to think that this Version would be liked from J.R.R. Tolkien too.

If you are able to get hold of a first Edition from Hobbit, you will noticed a big different to the book we know.

So now i have to wait for the big package with all Hobbits and LotR extendet.
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Idek says...
5 years ago
It was supposed to be a great show and it was... quite next to the book. ;)
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alexlimberg says...
2 years ago
Let me see. Winter has arrived. Fearless dwarf leaders. A dragon incinerating cities. A sea faring people dressed in black. A mad king . A monster with blue eyes and pale skin. A dragon killed with a single shot. Hmmm ..

Probably still the best of the Hobbit movies. It looks good (as good as the other movies). The stupid serial itinerary is finally over. There are multiple parallel plots. Some characters actually change over the course of this movie (although it's difficult to understand why). It's still too much relying on characters behaving like stereotypes. The story isn't exactly a complex masterpiece. Fighting scenes are too repetitive and not well balanced. They don't know how to incorporate women - they are too often simple follower of men w/o an ambition on their own. The soundtrack is totally annoying - it's just a standard adventure/fantasy movie soundtrack that is constantly over dramatic. Biggest issue: it's way too long. This movie is too long and they should have cut the trilogy down to one movie.
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