“So began a battle that none had expected,” wrote JRR Tolkien in the third-from-last chapter of The Hobbit. “And it was called The Battle of the Five Armies, and it was very terrible.” Peter Jackson’s expansion of this epochal but barely-described fracas, in his third and final film from this slim book, is neither very terrible nor remotely unexpected. It’s a series of stomping footnotes in search of a climax.
In terms of story so far, it ends virtually when it starts – with super-peeved dragon Smaug (Benedict Cumberbatch) raining down fiery destruction on the pitiful residents of Laketown, and facing the last-ditch heroism of an archer called Bard (Luke Evans). Everything else is scraps, in both senses. Jackson’s one recourse is to ape the here-we-go-again war mania of The Return of the King. Humans, dwarves and elves duke it out with orcs and wild wolves. It's a whopping great grudge match, a squabble over the contents of Smaug’s mountain lair, and goodness knows what else. The trouble is that Jackson can’t make it mean very much: when every life on Middle Earth is seemingly at stake, few individually grab our attention. There’s more aftermath than plot left, and very little of it has to do with Bilbo (Martin Freeman), who feels increasingly like a forlorn bystander in his own franchise. The further and more competently the movie trundles on, the more it begs not to exist, really: hindsight favours a two-part adaptation at most. This isn’t to say there aren’t bright spots. However it was fudged, 92-year-old Christopher Lee doing Shaolin kung fu with his magic staff is great value. And the last third is rescued by one meaty, entertaining set piece – crumbling citadel, frozen lake, one-on-one duels between orcs and the principal cast. Freeman, and Evangeline Lilly as the not-in-Tolkien elf maiden Tauriel, inject some unforced pathos which puts many of their dewy-eyed co-stars to shame. The bloom has come off Orlando, though, whose main achievement as Legolas – other than some ridiculous mid-air running up collapsing masonry – is to illustrate perfectly what Joey Tribbiani from Friends called “smell the fart acting”. When the dwarf leader Thorin (Richard Armitage) imagines himself drowning in a pool of molten gold, Jackson’s pet message that Greed Is Bad rings out again – but you have to wonder if a triple-your-money release strategy is quite the seemliest context to preach it in. At 6ft 2", Armitage must be the tallest actor ever to play a dwarf. The film is the opposite: a paragraph on steroids. source:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/filmreviews/11260252/The-Hobbit-The-Battle-of-the-Five-Armies-first-look-review-begs-not-to-exist.html Movie Info
From Academy Award (R)-winning filmmaker Peter Jackson comes "The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies," the third in a trilogy of films adapting the enduringly popular masterpiece The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien. "The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies" brings to an epic conclusion the adventures of Bilbo Baggins, Thorin Oakenshield and the Company of Dwarves.
Having reclaimed their homeland from the Dragon Smaug, the Company has unwittingly unleashed a deadly force into the world. Enraged, Smaug rains his fiery wrath down upon the defenseless men, women and children of Lake-town. Obsessed above all else with his reclaimed treasure, Thorin sacrifices friendship and honor tohoard it as Bilbo's frantic attempts to make him see reason drive the Hobbit towards a desperate and dangerous choice.
But there are even greater dangers ahead. Unseen by any but the Wizard Gandalf, the great enemy Sauron has sent forth legions of Orcs in a stealth attack upon the Lonely Mountain. As darkness converges on their escalating conflict, the races of Dwarves, Elves and Men must decide - unite or be destroyed. Bilbo finds himself fighting for his life and the lives of his friends in the epic Battle of the Five Armies, as the future of Middle-earth hangs in the balance. (c) Warner Bros Rating: PG-13 (for extended sequences of intense fantasy action violence, and frightening images) Genre: Action & Adventure , Science Fiction & Fantasy Directed By: Peter Jackson Written By: Philippa Boyens , Guillermo del Toro , Fran Walsh , J.R.R. Tolkien , Peter Jackson In Theaters: Dec 17, 2014 Wide On DVD: Mar 24, 2015 US Box Office: $255.1M Runtime: 2 hr. 24 min. Warner Bros. - Official Site
source:http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_hobbit_the_battle_of_the_five_armies/
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