I totally love LOTR. The Hobbit, on the other hand, had been mediocre so far. For those who actually read the source material, it is as expected. LOTR is very rich in the vast world of Middle Earth, spanning 3 complete and long books. The Hobbit, on the other hand, is suppose to be a thin and simple children book. One single book. One. How would the producer decide to stretch it to a complete trilogy? By adding in unnecessary stuff and prolonging unnecessary scene.
The Battle of Five Armies picks up where the second movie left us. Smaug is awakened from the dwarves lair and attack the human riverside town. Within the few minutes of opening, the dragon is shot down. And the rest of the movie focused on how the dwarves defended their fortress. Thorin Oakenshield, as what happens to his grandfather, become poisoned with the riches and refuse to part with his treasure which was promised to be shared with the human for their help. After the dragon fell, everyone came to claim either the treasures or the fortress. The elves came, the human came, then the orcs came. The bulk of the movie is just ONE single prolonged battle.
There is so many things not to like about the movie. Compared to LOTR where the character development is done very well, here there are not many characters that one can root for. Thorin is not that likable. Gandalf is basically just a side character appearing now and then to remind people that this is part of the LOTR story. Bilbo is nice but the focus is not on him. And... I cant even recall who is the rest of the dwarves. The added love triangle with the dwarf and elf is not in the original book but unnecessary added in, but done so weirdly with so many cheesy lines. The battle scenes is just OK. The geography of the place is not portrayed well, that when the say the orcs are attacking in 2 directions, nobody would actually notice. 5 armies? I assume the last army would be army of animals which is just featured in a span of few seconds.
This is clear example of the producer trying to get the audience to pay more. The material is thin. They should just leave that, and do a 2 part-er at the most. I got the same feeling watching the latest installment of Hunger Games.
ratings: 2 half poink!
comments: Added poink for the sake of LOTR.
