To keep the thing alive and in tradition, here's another late December post.
I've seen The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies yesterday.
I enjoyed the final chapter, or the middle one, depending on how you look at it.
To anyone that is yet to see it you may wanna skip this read as it may contain spoilers.
Be warned ye who enters. SPOILERS AHEAD!
The movie starts out on the Lake town while under attack by Smaug. Impressive as it was I wanted to see more of Smaug here, opposed to second part where they showed it bit to much(Im addressing the part where dragon chases dwarves trough the halls of Erebor).. But our dragon ends up dead relatively quickly. That was a downer for me.
We then switch to Lonely Mountain and the dwarves. I liked the transformation of Thorin character. This sequel could have benefited of Thorin and his dragon sickness card even more than it did had they cut out annoying and unnecessary gag character Alfrid.
Seriously, I think this was the biggest issue for me in this sequel. It was stupid and made to satisfy needs of 7yr olds. I rolled my eyes whenever that guy walked in.
Im aware that the reference material for these sequels comes nowhere near LOTR books. But they deviated from the Hobbit book on so many occasions that it wouldn't hurt if they cut out all the gags and kindergarten level humor from it. I like the drama, seriousness and "realism" in fantasy. On one end we have battle of five armies raging outside and inside the Dale and they take a comedy central break with Alfrid dressed up as woman, filling his bra with gold coins. No! Shit no!
Im not going to give that annoyance of a character one more letter here.
Id like to clarify what the "realism" in fantasy means to me.
For instance. When the ground worms breach mountain making way for orc armies. Ive got no problem with giant worms digging trough stone. All legit. But I wish they showed some short shot explaining how orcs got those worms digging for them in the direction they needed in the first place. Something like Sauron casting a spell on them or whatever. But I might be nitpicking
There was a handful of scenes where I ended up with tingles down my spine. Part where Galadriel comes to rescue Gandalf. That was intense. Saruman and Elrond kicking 9 arses was joy beyo nd measure. Sauron eye effects on the other hand when it is being confronted by Galadriel.. This bit could have been made better visually. The way it was done now somehow felt rushed. I would describe this part with words from popular song.."If you dont know what you're doing make a cut, if you dont know what you're doing and you"...
Anyway, lot of cuts there in the Galadriel vs the Eye.
Someone reading this may think by now, "This guy enjoyed Hobbit?" "Trolling much?"
But I have enjoyed it. Very much. Especially towards the middle and end with climactic battles and everything. So many brilliant situations and choreographed fights.
The moment when Thranduil rides his Elkmoose and plows all those orcs of that bridge was fantasy porn in a super positive sense, ending with that sixtcapitation that made my jaw drop down and shatter in 1000 puzzle piece.
The moment Thorin fights Azog on the frozen falls. That wide slow mo shot with Thorin and Azog about to hit it off is a classic moment and looks so real.
Also one other thing I noticed.
Legolas. In first part of the movie when he shows up he has those weird bright blue almost glowing eyes as from Desolation of Smaug. Couple moments later he looks "normal", the type of "normal" he looked like in LOTR.
Not 100% sure why is that so? He did denounce his belonging to the woodland elves around that time or something like that. Maybe that was the reason.
Whatever it was I liked him better that normal way. Those glowing eyes just didn't work for me. It looked creepish.
To sum this sequel up. I would score it 7.8/10
Overall, Hobbit trilogy was awesome prelude to LOTR.
It lacked in sense it did not have the element of surprise and originality its predecessor enjoyed. It was built around arguably lesser Tolkien work compared to LOTR.
Realistically, if about 25 minutes of material could be cut out from the entire trilogy it would be even better. But nevertheless, it shall be owned on bluray when a box set hits the stores.
