review; the hobbit: a battle of five armies

Just saw the hobbit. And while I can say I love middle earth, I may not love all of it (yeah, I did just use the first line of the hobbit as the nerdiest opening ever) so, here's a late night review (by late I mean like not even late).

Plot: oh no! Smaug is destroying Laketown! Until a couple minutes later when Bard shoot big bad (this isn't a spoiler; it happens in the first ten minutes /exaggeration was used/ and come on, is ANYONE expecting Smaug to win?) and he comes tumbling down. Anywho, then Thorin goes and reclaims his kingdom under the mountain, searching tireless (and psychotic) -Ly for the arkenstone. Becoming treasure obsessed he turns his back on the people of Laketown who are in need and then came the elves, wanting their share of the treasure and hoo, buddy, if he was unwilling to share with the race of men, who helped him then the elves have something else coming. Peace or treasury? He chooses treasure, glittering gold to be splattered with blood. The elves, men and dwarves (all thirteen! Okay, Thorins cousin /played by meridas dad from brave/ comes too, but still) start fighting but then everything goes wrong (it was going perfect beforehand, obviously!) when the orcs come. And then the fun starts. *HALFWAY POINT, SPOILER TERRITORY AHEAD! TRAVELERS BEWARE* Thorin, by now obviously corrupt by the arkenstone, has not only bilbo, but his thirteen loyal dwarves trying to tell him to Stop being such a douche pants about his stupid treasure. They stage a much needed intervention, telling him they can get him counseling and help him get through it (no, not really, but ya know), and he eventually changes his mind. He decides to fight the orcs too, and the go into battle. Thorin, Fili, and Kili go to "cut the head off the snake" and find out, crap, it's a trap! (Unintentional rhyme, sorry). Tauriel and Legolas's go to help Thorin (and others, for different reasons), but it's too late. Fili is a goner. Sad. Then Tauriel starts fighting orc, hopelessly looking for a Kili, who then dies and she attacks his attacker who Legolas eventually kills. Thorin fights Azog and they both are bested, breaking the line of durin. The Eagles come and I guess the wars over (I was seriously confused when that happened) everyone celebrates and mourns and Bilbo returns home just in time for the beginning of lord of the rings! (Seriously; they did it like that. If was cool, but weird and..... Mostly weird)

Thoughts: huh, well.... First off, the Smaug part felt seriously weird. TWO movies at TWO hours BOTH leading up to a villian defeated in about TWENTY minutes? When Smaug fell I joked to my mom that it was a really good movie, kinda short though. I knew that wasn't the end, but it felt a bit... Eh, for lack of another word, weird, as used for the fourth time in the past couple sentences. My biggest problem was that it didn't have enough closure. Thorins treasure obsession? Dealt with too easily. War? Just kinda finished without showing you. It's over without too much explaination. And then there's all the characters who aren't in the LotR. They're not much explaination of what happens to them. Like, did they just be like "that was fun" and go back to their lives? Laketown people? Tauriel? Dwarves under the mountain? If you read the books (which I haven't read the hobbit in at least two years, I'm going to reread it soon, though) you know what happens to some, but Tauriel was completely made up, so we get no closure there, and also, it would be nice to get some movie closure for characters even if their closure was in the books. Othere than those things, it just seemed a bit... Awkwardly put together. Super huge villian? Destroyed too easily, to stuff in the whole army which ends too easily and the sickness of the mind was thrown in to have an awkward part that doesn't fit in super well. It seemed a bit like a puzzle forced to fit together instead of doing it naturally. Also, the endings where a little too... Loose.

Rating: 3/5. It was an awesome middle earth fantasy with cool action, great quotes and amazing characters even if it didn't live up to my opinions of middle earth.

Elf
Super-chu
Raven DeWitt