The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

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nThe Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (2014)

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nDirector: Peter Jackson

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nCast: Ian McKellen, Martin Freeman, Richard Armitage, CatenBlanchett, Hugo Weaving, Christopher Lee, Ian Holm, Luke Evans, Stephen Fry,nBenedict Cumberbach

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nThis is the big conclusion to The Hobbit trilogy and theynobviously wanted to end the trilogy with a big bang, so of course, The Battlenof the Five Armies ended up being like the ‘Return of the Jedi’ of the Hobbitnmovies, which is to say, the biggest and baddest of them all. It’s as if allnthe action that was missing from the previous entries was taken out of thosenand put into this one, one film to rule them all. The good news is you probablynwon’t doze off during this one! The action is never ending, right from the getngo the film starts off with Smaug the Dragon destroying Lake town, and that’s anreal spectacle to watch. Now, I’m a huge fan of Dragons in films, and I have tonsay that this is one of the best depictions of a dragon, ever. I say one of thenbest because my favorite dragon is still and apparently will always be ‘VermithraxnPejorative’, the dragon from Mathew Robbins’ Dragonslayer (1981). Still to thisnday, I haven’t seen a better movie about dragons than that one, but the dragonnin The Battle of Five Armies? Pretty freaking impressive.

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nIn this the final chapter of The Hobbit saga we find thenpeople of Lake Town picking up their remains after in a fit of anger, Smaug thendragon destroys their town. Good news is that after Smaug is slayed, the LonelynMountain is up for grabs, and if you remember correctly, there’s a hugentreasure of gold inside of that mountain! Since this legendary treasure isncommon knowledge to everyone around, and  there isn’t a fire breathing dragon to protectnit anymore, now everybody wants it! The elves, the dwarves, the humans and thenorcs! Everybody wants a piece of that treasure! But the dwarves are not willingnto give it up! This all leads up to an amazing battle that takes up practicallynhalf of the film, which is why I say, this film is none stop action so strapnyourselves on tight for this one. It’s not a bore fest! 

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nThe only thing I criticize about these Hobbit movies is thatnI feel they stretched them out for too long. Yes, I have read the book, and Infeel that the whole story could have been told in one, maybe two movies tops.nBut of course, we can blame Hollywood for wanting to stretch franchises for anfew movies more, it’s the new trend in Hollywood. They’ll stretch “the finalnchapter” into various films. They did it with the Twilight films; they dividednthe last film into two, Breaking Dawn Part I and II…which creates a smallnconfusion because how can it be part I if this is the fourth film? Oh cause itsnpart one of the “finale” which they’ve now stretched into two films, simply tonmake a few extra millions. You see Hollywood knows the fans can’t miss a singlenchapter, because they know audiences are hooked on a feeling, like a junkienlooking for the next fix. They also did this with The Hunger Games, “MockingnJay Part I and II”. The thing is that you feel it, you feel that some of it isnjust filler, padding to fill running time. They did it with this Hobbit trilogynas well, which if you ask me went on for one movie too long, but whatever, thisnfinal film is like all kinds of awesome because it’s monsters and wizards andndragons fighting for almost the entire duration of the film! It’s a fantasynfilm fans wet dream!

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nImagine how much action this film has that it feels like itndoesn’t have much substance to it. Good thing is that it still manages to packna wallop emotionally; it has one or two moments which “got to me” because you’venknown these characters for three movies know, so you kind of grow fond of somenof them. I like that in spite of being a huge onslaught of action and specialneffects, The Battle of Five Armies still manages to tweak your emotion chip, whichnis something that Peter Jackson has always infused these Lord of the Ringsnmovies with: emotion; sometimes a little too much, but on this one? Just thenright amount of schmaltz.

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nFinal words: if you are a fan of fantasy films and love tonsee Wizards and Witches engaging in magic battles, fire breathing dragons destroyingnentire towns, and monsters going to war, then The Hobbit: The Battle of FivenArmies won’t disappoint. I still wonder what these movies would have been likenhad Guillermo del Toro directed them, at least he still gets some credit in thenwriting department. I’m willing to bet that it was the studios who gavenGuillermo del Toro de shaft because they wanted that weight of saying thatnthese three films were directed by the same Peter Jackson who made the previousnLord of the Rings films. That’s a huge selling point right there and I’m surenthey didn’t want to let that go, so they axed del Toro, even after he’d givennvarious years of his life in pre-production for these three Hobbit films. DelnToro’s take on it was that he left because he couldn’t commit to these filmsnfor six years of his life, especially when he has so many projects going onnwith many different studios, which is of course entirely true. Still, PeternJackson pulled it off nicely and who better to these then the director who madenthe previous three Lord of the Rings films right? I can’t help but wonder whatnhe’ll do next now that he’s leaving Middle Earth behind, I hope it’s somethingnevery bit as spectacular. And to think Jackson’s career started with the lownbudget indie flick Bad Taste (1987), a movie about aliens looking for humannflesh to sell in their own fast food chain! It’s funny, but even in his earliernfilms; Jackson  always displayed antendency to go over the top with his ideas, a tendency to shock as much as henpossibly could. If he was going to do a puppet movie then it would be thengrossest puppet movie you’ll ever see (Meet the Feebles (1989)) If he was goingnto make a zombie, the it was going to be the bloodiest zombie movie ever (DeadnAlive (1989)) and if he does a fantasy film, then he’ll make you jizz yournpants with an overdose of monsters and wizardry. Can’t wait to see what he’llngo over the top with next.

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nRating: 5 out of 5      

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