Monday, 29 December 2014

Film Review -- The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

     Peter Jackson loves making Middle-Earth movies, and making money.
     Now, in case you didn't know, The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies is the third and final film in The Hobbit film trilogy (which is a prequel to The Lord of the Rings film trilogy), and the sixth film under the banner of Middle-Earth (which The Lord of the Rings is a part of too).

WARNING: Minor spoilers from The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey ahead.
    
     After seeing the atrocity that was The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, this film came as a small surprise. I walked into the theatre ready to hate this movie, but when the credits started to role, I was the first to applaud. But this film is far from bringing back the good ol' days of The Lord of the Rings. 
     The first issue I had with this film was the over use of CGI. Now CGI can make a movie look great and even more magical, but when the real-life shooting locations are replaced with sets and crummy CGI, the film looses its awe. The most bizarre thing about the over-use of CGI in The Hobbit and the real-life locations in The Lord of the Rings is that The Hobbit Trilogy had a total budget of $745 million, and The Lord of the Rings Trilogy had a budget $281 million, and The Lord of the Rings still looked better (and the final The Lord of the Rings film was released 11 years ago)!
     The second concern I had was how stretched this film felt. The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies is based on one-third of a CHILDREN'S novel and converted it into a 144 minute movie, and so the parts of the books which only takes up one chapter took up most of this movie's run time.
     And the third and final concern is this: at the time of writing The Hobbit (novel) J.R.R. Tolkien had no idea that he was going to write The Lord of the Rings, and so it did not have much prequel-ness, but when Peter Jackson advertised The Hobbit film trilogy as a prequel, he tried to bring connection to The Lord of the Rings films, but it seemed kind of desperate. Although I liked The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey beginning with something from The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, the connections made in this movie were ether unnecisarry and/or did not make sense.
     But this film is not all horrible, I enjoyed the fact that this movie was slightly more book-accurate than The Hobbit: The Deescalation of Smaug. The acting was amazing. Martin Freeman plays an amazing Bilbo, Ian McKellen always does a great job, Benedict Cumberbatch motion-captures a great Smaug, and the list goes on with beautiful performances by Richard Armitage, Luke Evans, Orlando Bloom, Christopher Lee, Hugo Weaving, Cate Blanchett, Ian Holm, Lee Pace and many more.

     Now with all this said, I will give The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies %60. What did you think of The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies? Comment below and let me know. Until next review, this has been Me for The Film Heaven.

If you want to see the difference in filming between The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, watch the trailers below:
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King teaser: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqmNuHyI9ok
The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies teaser: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgNNb8bm_b8

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies information:
Release Date: December 17th, 2014 (USA and Canada)
Rating: PG-13 (USA), PG (Canada),
Director: Peter Jackson
Starring: Martin Freeman as Bilbo Baggins, Ian McKellen as Gandalf, Richard Armitage as Thorin, Benedict Cumberbatch as Smaug, Luke Evans as Bard the Bowman, Orlando Bloom as Legolas, Evangeline Lilly as Tauriel, Lee Pace as Thranduil, Cate Blanchett as Galadriel, Hugo Weaving as Elrond, Christopher Lee as Saruman, Elijah Wood as Frodo Baggins and Manu Bennett as Azog,    
          

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