The Battle of the Five Armies - thoughts?

***Earniel*** · 08-05-2018, 05:57 AM

I finally managed to see the Five Armies while on holiday. I had extremely low expectation since neither of the previous Hobbit movies left much of an impression (apart from annoyance) with me. In that view, the movie didn't disappoint but still left me feeling 'meh' about it. Frankly, I didn't feel like I gained much by viewing it. If this hadn't the name 'the Hobbit', this might be a totally forgettable movie with too much needless dragging out and too much unbelievable CGI. I've actually seen better B-movies that I would more likely be re-watching that any of the Hobbit movies.

Settings and costumes were awesome as always, (I loved Dale!) but just not enough to carry such long movies if everything else is weak. Fight choreography, which I usually enjoy a lot, lost much of its appeal with its pointless flaunting of basic physics! One elf and orc being flung about by one another sends giant stone-work crumbling? Come. on. The entire Hobbit trilogy is plagued by thinking one can ignore physics to have more visually-appealing imaginery. It doesn't work for me. I think it is lazy and shows poor imagination.

The actors did worthy jobs, don't get me wrong, but there were too many of them needing to do too many scenes that added little to the story and which mostly strayed far from the source material in tone. Except for Bilbo, for the titular character, he was barely enough in his own movie.

The only scenes that cracked a smile were those with Alfrid in, and really if the one thing that makes you smile is something that isn't even in the books, you're doing your book adaptation wrong.

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08-05-2018, 05:57 AM	#17
*Earniel* The Chocoholic Sea Elf Administrator Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: N?n in Eilph (Belgium) Posts: 14,363	I finally managed to see the Five Armies while on holiday. I had extremely low expectation since neither of the previous Hobbit movies left much of an impression (apart from annoyance) with me. In that view, the movie didn't disappoint but still left me feeling 'meh' about it. Frankly, I didn't feel like I gained much by viewing it. If this hadn't the name 'the Hobbit', this might be a totally forgettable movie with too much needless dragging out and too much unbelievable CGI. I've actually seen better B-movies that I would more likely be re-watching that any of the Hobbit movies. Settings and costumes were awesome as always, (I loved Dale!) but just not enough to carry such long movies if everything else is weak. Fight choreography, which I usually enjoy a lot, lost much of its appeal with its pointless flaunting of basic physics! One elf and orc being flung about by one another sends giant stone-work crumbling? Come. on. The entire Hobbit trilogy is plagued by thinking one can ignore physics to have more visually-appealing imaginery. It doesn't work for me. I think it is lazy and shows poor imagination. The actors did worthy jobs, don't get me wrong, but there were too many of them needing to do too many scenes that added little to the story and which mostly strayed far from the source material in tone. Except for Bilbo, for the titular character, he was barely enough in his own movie. The only scenes that cracked a smile were those with Alfrid in, and really if the one thing that makes you smile is something that isn't even in the books, you're doing your book adaptation wrong.