Movie Review – The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

Being a Tolkien fan, I was looking forward to all three The Hobbit movies. First of all, when I say Tolkien fan, I don’t mean that I read The Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit after the movies came out. I’m referring to The Silmarillion and other unfinished tales that recount the history of middle-earth. I also loved to read his works looking into the theological influences in his writing (I’m also a theology fan), which is why I would pay close attention to the symbolism that his writing carried.

But this review isn’t about Tolkien’s writing, nor the symbolism of his stories. This review is about the movie itself. From start to finish, the movie is packed with action, and it seems like there’s something important going on in every second of it. This never-a-dull-moment type of pacing makes the movie enjoyable, and adds a nice contrast to the previous two films, since it also serves as the climax of the story.

The pacing of the movie, along with the additions to the story (that many fans criticize) make The Battle of the Five Armies a fun to watch, action-packed, epic film. But, when I say ‘epic’, I mean this to a certain point. Although the movie does include a great war, it doesn’t come close to the battles we’ve seen before in The Two Towers and The Return of the King. The incredible amount of CGI and lack of actors made the battle seem like a World of Warcraft commercial. The lack of character development made the protagonists seem so bland and boring that you wouldn’t even care if any of them died.

Although I understand that this is not a stand-alone movie, and that I need to watch the first two parts and this one as one whole movie, I think that the LotR trilogy did a better job of making their movies seem complete, individually and as a group. In the case of The Hobbit, it did not turn out this way.

There was also a lot of unnecessary foreshadowing to events that will occur in the Fellowship of the Ring and beyond. As well as a headache-inflicting use of color filters, which was the low point of the movie in my opinion. The scene where Lady Galadriel shows off her incredible yet frightening powers doesn’t do justice to her original show-off scene in The Fellowship of the Ring. What was intended to be a frightening, awesome, unexpected event became a playroom for Color-Invert filters and Voice-Pitch software.

Don’t get me wrong. It is not a bad movie. Nor is it boring. The Battle of the Five Armies is a very entertaining film, and could be an edge-of-your-seat conclusion to a wonderful story. Yet, the fact that you have to watch An Unexpected Journey and The Desolation of Smaug, not long before watching this film is a con to the experience. I know fan-boys have the initiative to make the three-movie marathon in a day (some even do the six-movie marathon). But not all of us have the time for that. (On the bright side, this movie isn’t three hours long).

As a final word, my picks for the Hobbit movies, in order of which I liked the most would go like this:

1. The Desolation of Smaug (the most ‘complete’ movie in my opinion, cliffhanger ending was great, although for the sake of The Battle of the Five Armies, it would’ve been better to add Smaug’s attack and defeat to this movie, instead of leaving it for the third one).
2. An Unexpected Journey (a beautiful, fun introduction to a beloved children’s tale, and to its main character, Bilbo)
3. The Battle of the Five Armies (epic and suspenseful, the most action-packed film of the three, but not the most enjoyable to watch).

PS: I do intend to do a three-movie marathon this Christmas vacation, but with The Lord of the Rings trilogy.