Home Entertainment Broootally Honest: The Battle of The Five Armies Review; or, Oh…Alright

Broootally Honest: The Battle of The Five Armies Review; or, Oh…Alright

Battle-of-the-five-armies

When was the last time your neck got uneasy? When was the last time your butt literally went numb? I don’t remember the last time I went for a movie just for the sake of going to a movie. Something reminds me of Taxi Driver, maybe the loneliness of this festival season. I mean yeah, it was apparent to me that people don’t like me, but why do we need a whole season to emphasize on that? Oh wait, what went wrong here? Ahhhh…between really dreadful final exams, all baes (actual and potential) leaving me alone, a global air of depression, that evergreen feeling of laziness, the new Star Wars, Terminator and Jurassic World trailers, missing out on movies, music and friends I missed out on every single thing I could’ve done and boy do I hate that. And as if 2014 wasn’t apocalyptic enough, the last movie of The Hobbit trilogy turned out to be a total and utter bore…perfectly described in one word, ‘meh’. And on top of that it’s winter, perfect. Thank you, Peter Jackson!

The Movie; or The Assault:Everyone agrees that the first sequel i.e. The Desolation of Smaug was indeed the best of The Hobbit Trilogy. Let’s talk about the trilogy first. See, The Hobbit is a single book and I really thought (and still think) that it’d been better as a two movie series instead of a trilogy because making three movies out of a single book just stretches the material thin and ends up in what the whole series suffers from, boring, long, drawn-out sequences which I actually used to love till I stopped giving a fuck. Well, The Hobbit: The Battle of The Five Armies is the final instalment of the prequel trilogy to (still superb and still awesome) The Lord of The Rings Trilogy. Let’s just get into the movie and get this over with, I don’t wanna end up boring and disappointing you the way I’ve been over the past year…oh wait, the fucking year still hasn’t ended! Thank you, Peter Jackson!

(BURN BABY! BBBBUUUUURRRRRRNNNNNN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

The Actual Movie; or The Real Assault:So, we start off (in the movie) with where we left (typical) i.e. Smaug, the great fire-breathing-human/elf/dwarf-BBQing-gold-loving (typical of mythical dragons) dragon played (literally) by Benedict Cumberbatch. Smaug sets Lake Town on fire and as chaos runs wild amongst the town’s folk forcing them to flee, Bard (Luke Evans) kills the dragon in pretty dramatically awesome sequence and earns the moniker ‘Dragon Slayer’ (Holy Shit! That’s actually a kickass name!). And the great fire-breathing-human/elf/dwarf-BBQing-gold-loving dragon Smaug is dead. Yup, that’s the first 15 or 20minutes of the movie. This is a clear sign that you’re gonna be bored because the ultimate badass of the trilogy is dead, in other words, prepare your butt for we’re gonna sit for a long time eating up plot points explained by various characters. Thank you, Peter Jackson!

Next, we move to the part that focuses on the other major theme throughout LOTR and The Hobbit; greed in the hearts of men…ummm, I mean creatures of Middle Earth. We see that Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitrage), now king under the mountain, is infected as his greed for the Arkenstone turns sick and the movie tries to take a dark tone by making Oakenshield act like a total ass (something dwarves are famous for). All dwarves in the mountain (including the ones who’ve now returned from Lake Town) and Bilbo (Martin Freeman) are growing weary of his attitude (as in have had enough of his shit but won’t do anything since he’s the next king).This was pretty boring and predictable, given the fact that we’ve seen precious objects turn characters into real nutjobs 5 times already.

What Else?In between landscape shots of New Zealand’s best green screen and Oakenshield’s failing fellowship we follow many other subplots that join to make one plot later. We see Gandalf (Ian Mckellan) and other wizards (Saruman the White, Radagast the Brown, Lady Galadriel and Lord Elrond) encounter Sauron (.gif) and those lovely wraiths from LOTR, this is quite nice considering the fact that it’s not even in the book. We see Elven King Thranduil (Lee Pace) has already sent his army to the city of Dale (now inhabited by the people of Lake Town) because he craves diamonds, and other armies of Dark Elves and Orcs of Gundabad gathering at their respective paces, all ready for the war to win over the Lonely Mountain and the treasure it holds. After all, the movie’s named The Battle of the Five Armies. And in between all this, the Hobbit tries his best to go unnoticed and he succeeds. Well done Laddie!

(Oh you feel fabulous, don’t you Thranduil?)

The Battle:Something’s definitely hindering my thinking abilities…the new Slipknot album? Maybe. The five armies are (yes I kept count throughout the movie) The Elf/Human Alliance led by Thranduil and Bard, The Dark Elves led by the mighty Azog the Defiler, The Orcs of Gundabad led by Azog (again), The Army of Dwarves of Moria (that sounds so funny) led by Thorin Oakenshield and his cousin Dain.

Wait…that’s four armies…Oh yeah? Oh Yeah! That’s four armies! Where’s the fifth army Peter Jackson? Don’t worry, the fifth army is of The Beasts (the familiar eagles, that giant bear and all other animals that Radagast can summon). But this army hardly gets the screen time as, come on! We’re only gonna focus on Thorin, Bilbo, Kili and Tauriel (the hot ones on the scene! No, not really), Legolas, Thranduil and Bard and his kids because well, all else are extras, right? Yeah, who are we kidding? God, I loved the battle in The Return of The King but the battle in this movie seems more like a desperate attemptto just fill in for the slated run time. I honestly felt as if I was watching a gameplay video during the Legolas vs.Bolg section. Not much nerd boners here.

Somewhere Near the End (somewhere):And also, Tolkien work and PJ work is said to ignore women as important figures (totally forgetting Eowyn, though we of course needed more of her) so Tauriel was introduced in the last movie, all the women of Lake Town, Legolas’ mother is mentioned twice, I’d say poor Peter Jackson, nice move but still…I’m like totally indifferent as I write this. Seriously! What happened to the trilogy I was wetting my pants over? The first one was okay, the second was cool and the third (mentioned before) was ‘meh’. So, the epic finale comes to an end as we see Fili die, Kili die, Legolas make exit to meet Aragorn, Azog finally dies but so does Thorin, Sauron was defeated already, no hints as to how Saruman joins him. The movie literally takes a crap on the previous two with its super bad end…okay, okay I finally see Aunt Sackville Baggins, but answer this; who the fuck cares?

Some Random Thoughts:
What happens to the Lonely Mountain? Who’s the next king of Dwarves? What happens to Tauriel? Legolas ages in reverse? Where are all the other characters that were reintroduced in those long sequences? Where did those awesome worms go? These are some questions the movie clearly doesn’t answer. Also, to a certain someone (I’m talking about you, yes the one who made me hate Coldplay; if you ever read this article), watch this movie and watch Thranduil answer Tauriel’s honest question “Why does it hurt so much?” by saying “Because it was real”. You hear that? BECAUSE IT WAS REAL!!!

I give The Hobbit: The Battle of The Five Armies 6.5/10. No…I’ll reduce it to a 6/10 (because I can).

That’s it! Merry Fucking Christmas! Go have fun this New Year’s eve; I’ll be in my quilt.

NO COMMENTS

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

Subscribe to India’s fastest growing youth blog
to get smart and quirky posts right in your inbox!

Enter your email address:

Delivered by FeedBurner

Exit mobile version