The Hobbit : The Battle of the Five Armies

[baal666]

May spoil the previous films.
Review of Desolation of Smaug : http://s4.zetaboards.com/Old_Skool_Reunion?topic=10002662/1/#new

Before the movie :

As I said in the review of the previous movie, i grew up loving the LOTR trilogy and the first two Hobbit films were good, not as good as the first trilogy but still very enjoyable. I had high expectations for it, you can't end two trilogies on a low note. I won't make any comparisons with the books as i've never read them.

I saw the movie in High Frame Rate 3D.
Also, we were 8 friends and all agreed on the good and bad points so the review isn't biased by my love for this universe.

Movie Plot :

The movie starts exactly where we left the story in The Desolation of Smaug, the dwarves are inside the lonely mountain and Smaug is flying to Lake Town in order to destroy it.

Thorin took his throne inside the lonely moutain, surrounded by an ocean of gold, and all he wants is finding the Arkenstone but none of his fellow dwarves can seem to find it and Thorin starts to be cursed by all the wealth and isn't able to trust anyone.

Meanwhile, humans from Lake city are coming to the mountain claim the gold promised by the dwarves, an Elf army led by Thranduil is willing to fight to get white gems from the treasure and Azog & Bolg are leading the orcs toward the mountain.

On his side, Gandalf witnessed the return of Sauron and the Nazguls

My impressions :

+ The music, it has always been a good thing in these movies.
+ The romance between Kili and Tauriel. I didn't se it as a good thing in the previous movie but here, as i couldn't feel anything for any other characters, it gave a more personal look on a dwarf.
+ The ending is less cheesy than the one for the LOTR trilogy.

- HFR 3D is awful. Simple things like walking or rowing look like they are sped up and overall the HFR3D really put me out of the movie, i couldn't focus on anything and it made it all look so ugly.
- Remember Smaug ? That huge dragon that was build up in the previous movies as a big danger, yeah not such a big deal in the movie. Yes he destroys a city but for the viewers he is done in 15 minutes in a ridiculous way.
- We don't really care about the characters, even though Thorin's madness should be interesting, the movie isn't really about his quest but about the battle.
- Video game actions. Just two exemples : the nazguls are flickering when stabbed, as if there was a glitch while rendering the CGI & the trolley scene.
- Legolas is useless and ridiculous.
- The speeches about love.

To conclude, this movie is a letdown. Don't get me wrong, it's not a shameful movie and i'm happy i saw it but i expected so much more.

<big><big>6/10</big></big>

 

[AKI Man]

Great review bro. Can I ask, did the Batman vs superman trailer play before the film started? Apparently they were going to show it.

 

[Maximo]

It's quite good in 2d, the CGI glitches are unnoticeable.

Legolas,

Spoiler: click to toggle

...
only had 2 people die under his watch out of 6+, and one, was because the person was fucking stupid about where they were standing,

...so he didn't do to bad.

Spoiler: click to toggle

They showed how Smaug will die in the second film but yeah my head was screaming for Smaug to just breath a fire ball at the them, instead of mouthing off then doing...well that, its stupid, watch it.

My ex loved the romantic scenes, she got alot more into it because of it.

Apart from that solid film, and watch it in 2d, don't avoid it, it has many good moments, even though its slow at times.

I watched it at Cineworld, the only trailers were about 4 medieval video game trailers, a WW2 film and a Moby Dick film (in a trailer where they refused to say Moby Dick)

It might be due to when I saw it though :/

Edit: Actually shit, I went to get the birthday girl another drink, I probably missed the SmvsBm trailer.[/spoiler]

 

[baal666]

I will watch it in 2D soon, i hope it will be more enjoyable.

@Cable, they didn't play the batman vs superman trailer before The Hobbit where i saw it. All the trailers were about shitty French films and the other movies that were currently playing in the cinema.