Film I Hope Thorin and his Merry Band of Assholes Rot
Just to note: This review is exclusively covering the film (not the book) and I only watched the film once (which was plenty enough for me) so there may be some errors regarding particular details.
Now then: Why the fuck does anyone like Thorin and the dwarves? I just could not get over the fact that these assholes essentially set Smaug loose on a town and then refused to help the inhabitants. Yes, the town may have broken a promise of aid in the past but guess what? Considering the dwarves' actions directly caused the loss of their homes and that the town leader killed Smaug (thus allowing the dwarves to reclaim their ancestral home), the LEAST the dwarves could do is give them a share of the treasure so that they don't fucking starve/freeze to death.
And no, Thorin's "dragon sickness" isn't an excuse. For one, the other dwarves weren't affected and yet they didn't even bother challenging him about the townsfolk. The only reason they seemed to care was because Thorin had given his word and thus they needed to maintain their "honor." Instead of, you know, helping out hundreds of people who are now homeless because you had to go and poke a sleeping dragon. Additionally, Thorin never shows any concern for these people. Instead, the reason he goes out to fight is to help out his cousin.
Nor is this helped by Thranduil being wholly unsympathetic and getting scores of his own people killed for trinkets.
Oh, and Tauriel was laughably useless. The only thing she managed to accomplish was getting others killed and being a damsel in distress.
Honestly, Bard and Bilbo were the only halfway sympathetic characters but that wasn't enough to save this train wreck.
Besides having so many loathsome protagonists, there was not a single compelling villain and instead it felt like the greatest threat hanging over these people was them getting themselves killed due to their petty bickering and greed. Which I, personally, found irritating and completely unentertaining.
If you enjoyed this film, good for you. I know the ten year old girls sitting behind me in the theater were bawling their eyes out at each of the deaths so clearly they found the film affecting. But speaking for myself, I would be gleeful never to have to watch another Hobbit film ever again.
Film One last time.
The last of the trilogy and thefinale for Middle Earth movies. Is it as great as it could have been? No. Is it good? Yes.
Journey was good to me because it was fun and had nice focus on the dwarves. Desolation was a disaster because it lacked those things, but Battle tries to bring them back.
The plot walks on thin ice. There is no plot to fill a whole movie, thus 50% of it is build-up to the battle while the other 50% is the actual battle. Despite that handicap, I think the movie manages to work well.
Thorin's descent was nicely done, managing not to look like Character Derailment. You understand why Thorin is like this (such as his whole point on Thranduil's Chronic Backstabbing Disorder and the Lakedown deal being fraudulent). Bilbo finally stopping being a Lovable Coward is also greatly done, so these two arcs of character manage to keep up the first half interesting.
Battle brings the spotlight back where it belongs: the Dwarves. Unlike Desolation, the Company were the main characters this time around, so I was glad seeing the world through the perspective of the Dwarven race again and seeing the elvish screentime dialed back.
There's the magnificent White Council Vs Ringwraiths fight, one of the high marks of the film and manages to wrap up the plot well. It's a shame it's so brief and so early.
The Battle itself is great action, quite epic (Thorin's rally of the Dwarvish army being the high point), perhaps my favorite of the hexalogy, Dáin Ironfoot, who steals the spotlight in style, and a good dramatic moment with the death of Thorin Oakenshield, truly a Tear Jerker. Plus with his descent into madness arc, Richard Armitage's Thorin carries the film on his back.
There are flaws: as said, the plot walks on thin ice, Azog the Defiler really should have died on the ice, Smaug's battle has no place in this film and should be in Desolation, Legolas is still annoyingly unnecessary, Fili and Kili's death cause zero impact (I was more saddened by Tauriel's weeping than Fili's death).
But, all in all, it's solid. It doesn't capture the fun of the first, but it manages to be satisfying nonetheless. Good drama, good action, good characters, Tear Jerker moments and a beautiful Book Ends finisher.
So yes Jackson, I will follow you one last time.
Film Well . . . I enjoyed it
This film series has been . . . polarizing to say the least. Some like it, some think it's the worst abomination of book adaptions since Eragon's film. I admit my inner fanboy throws a fit with each of the changes these films make, but I think that I should really try and enjoy the films for what they are, not what everyone wants them to be. These aren't good book adaptions if you want it to stick to the book, but I think they are enjoyable movies if you divorce from your mind that these are meant to be based on a book.
To be clear, I love the books, the books are my favorite books of all time. I idolize them as the pinnacle of fantasy literature. The LOTR movies are also my favorite movies, but I don't think that means I can't enjoy these for what they are even if I don't think it adapts the book well (I think the Eragon movie has a few good points as well even if I think it is one of the worst adaptions ever.)
So, I really enjoyed this last film. For the storyline it had built, it ends nicely. There were moments that went over the top and some where I thought "oh, a scene that's missing but will probably appear in the extended edition," but on the whole, I enjoyed this movie.
Bad: Some of Legolas's stunts, such as running up falling stones made me sigh. The big battle just suddenly seems to end off screen(I guess that they'll save the scenes for the extended edition). I wish Beorn and Radagast would've gotten more screentime in the final battle.
Good: All the acting is great. The attack on Dol Guldor was epic, seeing Saruman fighting was great! Lake-Town was nice, Smaug got another scene to shine and the method for killing him was pretty creative. The four different armies look unique. Tauriel and Kili also work well, their relationship, while perhaps not as well developed as possible, feels genuine. Bilbo and the Dwarves are also great, Richard plays his role out (of spiraling greed and redemption) well and all the deaths felt genuinely sad.
Looking back, I think the best words to describe this series is "enjoyable on their own." Don't expect them to follow the book except at a basic level. As adaptions, they fail, on their own, they're enjoyable. They're not the epic that LOTR is, but almost nothing is. For what they are, I like them. They feel like a genuine effort so give them a fair try, they may surprise you.
Film The Battle of Five Narmies
Pure, undiluted narm. This is what this movie is, an exercise in narm escalation. The way Sauron was defeated was narm(What's up with Galadriel's voice?). The fight with Azog was narmy(Really, Peter Jackson? Throwing him inside a frozen lake?). EVERY SINGLE DEATH was narm(Except Smaug's).
And i must say, i'm quite surprised how PJ tried to make a movie with only one character. Thorin is the only person who gets any sort of development here(And, guess what? It's narm), everyone else being mere plot devices, appearing to advance the plot and then becoming part of the furniture.
And if you think the first movie had a bad pacing, you're in for a hell of a surprise. The first hour is just a looooooooooong and slow build up to a epic battle that never really happens, because the movie loses whatever energy it had once it begins. It's as if PJ just wanted to get this over with,and the entire thing just feels rather tok(i)en.
In fact, it's pretty obvious that PJ wasn't trying to make this film stand on his own merits. I say that because there's a lot of Shout Outs to LOTR. An absurd amount of them. Enough to make The Dresden Files pale in comparison. It's like TBOTFA knows it's a crappy movie and tries to make enough connections to the original trilogy so the older fans can feel a sense of smug satisfaction for getting them,ignoring the hidious amount of flaws this poor excuse of a movie has.
Now, the movie has it's monments:Dain Ironfoot is pure awesome(even though he only appears for 3 scenes at most), the fight between Legolas and CGI Orc Nº4073 is the best one-on-one coflict in the franchise IMO, and the initial battle with Smaug is one of the highest, if not the highest, point in the trilogy.
But those are just small chocolate truffles in the middle of a sea of shit, and doesn't change the fact that this is one of the worst adaptations of Tolkien's work, ever, and a desapointing end to what could have been a great trilogy.
P.S: I know this review is quite vitrolic, but please, if you like this film, don't take this as some sort of personal attack on your beliefs or something. If you want to have some kind of debate here, do so in a civil manner.
P.S.S: Sorry for all the puns, BTW. It's stronger than me, really.