Der Hobbit - Die Schlacht der fünf Heere

So I went to The Hobbit marathon. Yes, my fangirling has reached the level where I'm willing to sit in a theater for nine hours straight.

First of all, seeing the first two movies on the big screen again (and for the last time) was a wonderful experience. Seeing all three on the big screen in one night? Very cool. And getting to watch the character transformations and story lines in a row, fantastic. The effects, casting, acting, setting, action... everything was good.

Martin Freeman should win some major awards for his acting... actually everyone should. They're all incredible. I must say, I cried for most of the last fifteen or so minutes. If you've read the book etc., you know why. If not, please go so you can cry too.

The action and battle scenes are captivating, intense, and extremely fun to watch. We get more info about Sauron, which makes me very happy. We also get more Legolas and Tauriel, and let's be honest, who doesn't want more Elvish epicness?

There were a few moments I could have done without, and a few moments where the CGI seemed off, but other than that, I honestly couldn't ask for a better movie. I feel like braiding my hair and learning to wield a sword now.

People complain about these movies so much, but honestly, this is as good as it gets when it comes to book adaptations.

9/10

Once again, thank you Peter Jackson. Agorel vae. Galu.

Did Peter Jackson really just conclude his second Middle Earth trilogy? His take on J.R.R. Tolkein's "The Lord of the Rings" was a completely exhausting adventure that in many ways feels like seven films, not three, while "The Hobbit" trilogy feels exactly like it is on paper: one straightforward adventure broken into three parts. "The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies" proves a fitting, exciting conclusion to this particular trilogy, but compared to the conclusion of "The Lord of the Rings," quite frankly and pun intended – it gets dwarfed.

As with "The Unexpected Journey" and "The Desolation of Smaug," "The Battle of the Five Armies" is another beautiful achievement in fantasy filmmaking, with stunning production value and an outstanding director in Jackson. It is creative, humorous, action-packed, brimming with talent and gravitas and so many of the things that made "The Lord of the Rings" the achievement it was. So why was this trilogy less acclaimed and somewhat anti-climactic? Part of this undoubtedly has to do with novelty. We've been to Middle Earth before, we've seen the makeup and the elaborate sets, we know how Jackson navigates a battle sequence. Although "The Hobbit" has new locales and new characters and was the first film series screened with a higher frame rate, it's not as groundbreaking an achievement. Also, that accomplishment set the bar high for "The Hobbit" given how many people have returned from "Lord of the Rings" on camera and off.

Yet the real culprit is story. "The Hobbit" is a children's book, so splitting it into three parts is merely dragging out a streamlined plot of "company seeks treasure and justice, company faces challenges along the way culminating in a mighty dragon, company overcomes odds." The added subplots put more meat on the bones of the three films, especially "Desolation," but did not necessarily add complexity or maturity to it.

"Five Armies" at least does not waste any time. The first act is entirely buildup to the titular battle with plenty of suspense as sides try to negotiate in order to prevent an unnecessary war when a much greater evil is growing in Middle Earth. After Smaug torches Lake-town, Thranduil (Lee Pace) and the Wood-elves march upon Erebor, where Thorin (Richard Armitage) has reclaimed his rightful throne. Thorin, however, is corrupted by his greed, and rather than help the displaced people of Lake-town, grows restless because his treasure's focal point, the Arkenstone, has yet to be found. Bilbo (Martin Freeman), who has been hiding the Arkenstone, sees Thorin's madness could cause a senseless war, which of course it does, only the battle takes a different shape when Azog the Defiler and his orc army arrives.

So corruption and selfishness become dominant themes of the film until the final battle, which doesn't disappoint in scale, entertainment, or visual effects. What it doesn't do, however, is command a vested interest from the audience. And when the larger battle halts entirely in order to follow the main characters, it hurts the larger overall narrative, or rather, calls attention to the fact that there really isn't one at this point in the story other than "kill the orcs." Yes, the fate of Middle Earth is at stake, but we already know how things will ultimately play out.

Someone who has never seen the films watching all six in order could be something special, though. "Five Armies" does make "The Hobbit" trilogy a rather strong bridge to "Lord of the Rings," even in its last shot. In a way, Jackson acknowledges that that tale is the bigger story, the one that matters most. The parting message is kind of like "we hope you enjoyed these three fun movies, but 'The Lord of the Rings,' that's where it's really at." As moviegoers who witnessed "Lord of the Rings," this doesn't quite work for us, because we wanted to go back to Middle Earth for something more, to build on the experience of "Lord of the Rings." "The Hobbit," however, like any good prequel, is the foundation, not the next step, and because the story is so simplistic, it doesn't quite do enough for us on its own.

"The Hobbit" is a fun, small adventure filled with courage, danger, evil and love set in the world of "Lord of the Rings," and "Five Armies" is that big scene at the end of the story where everything comes to boil. That's the gist of it. The rest is Jackson and his extraordinary cast and crew bringing that elaborate world back to life for us to enjoy one more time.

~Steven C

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The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies is the weakest of all Peter Jackson's Tolkien adaptations. Even though this is the shortest of the Middle-earth movies, the story drags on as if it were the longest. But I guess that's what you get when you stretch out one book into three movies. In addition, the battle scenes are so computer generated that they look like in-game cinematics. It's a shame that this film series had to end on this note.

I was distinctly underwhelmed by the first two Hobbit movies, I thought they were good but just that "Good". They live in the shadow of the Lord Of The Rings movies and simply paled in comparison and so going into The Battle Of The Five Armies I expected more of the same.

According to both IMDb and the profit margin this was the most poorly received of the franchise, clearly people did not like the film by comparison. But as usual, I have to be different.

I consider this to not only be the best of the Hobbit franchise but also hot on the heels in quality as the LOTR trilogy.

The story culminates beautifully and if you can get past the many changes that were made you'll see the finale of a wondrous tale and a battle on screen that blew me away.

Once again the fantastic cast, stunning score, mind blowing effects and sheer beauty envelope you into the world of Middle Earth and I was gripped.

Yes its not flawless, but it is pretty damn close.

The Good:

Amazing opening

Action scenes are brutal

James Nesbitt

Evangeline Lilly

The Bad:

Still a lot of changes

One death was poorly done.

I really enjoyed the first two. I don't buy into the criticism that a 300 page book couldn't be made into a full blown trilogy. That said, I found the last episode way too full of battle scenes and gratuitous violence, big armies banging into each other, terrible orcs riding wolves, and the ultimate confrontation. In the process, all the charm that had been built up in the first two movies seemed to be dropped for a bunch of special effects. It starts well with the appearance of Smaug who fulfills his promise of destroying the town. But after that its a hodge-podge of romance and revenge and ultimately death. As this one ended, I literally felt, "Oh, is that the end?" Having read "The Hobbit" a couple of times, I knew what was going to happen, but it didn't quite work the way I thought it would. There was just something empty. Don't get me wrong, I could revel in the effort, but I can't say that this will stay with me for a long time.