It’s here! It’s here! “The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies” is finally here!
(Or as I like to call it, “The Lord of the Rings: Episode 6: What the Hell is Going On Here?”)
Seriously, I’ve already seen this movie FIVE times before!
I’m not joking on this. This film is a major test for your memory skills. As I sat in the theatre I began to reminisce of the previous films. I thought about all the characters in the other five movies and how they differed from this film. I was wondering how they had changed and developed. I thought to myself about the journeys this band of brothers ventured out on, and I said to myself, “Wow, what an interesting crew of homies out there strolling around in the woods.”
Then I really started pondering. “What the hell is going on here?” I said to myself. “I think I’m lost somewhere in Middle Earth.”
And I was correct. I was lost. I was lost with all these dwarves, elves, orcs, wizards, humans, and hobbits. And we had NO IDEA where we were going, or where we had been… or even why we were going, or had already went.
What I’m trying to say here is there was nowhere to go, because I was lost.
And that’s “The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies.”
The third and final act of this trilogy begins five minutes BEFORE the last film ended. It needed to begin there otherwise you’d have no idea what was going on.
Then, once the film gets you up to speed, it’s off to the mountain.
Yeah, the mountain. This is something that I had completely forgotten about over the three or four or five other movies that I had already seen.
For much of this film I thought that all these characters were protecting the Ring.
But it wasn’t that at all.
Then I thought they were going to retrieve the highly coveted Oakenstone.
But no, not really.
Then I thought that all these weirdos in the woods were going to the mountain for all its gold.
Kinda, but not really.
The story of “The Hobbit” is actually the story of the dwarves going to reclaim the mountain that was rightfully theirs in the first place.
But still, everybody wanted the Oakenstone for its power. And everyone wanted the gold in the mountain because everbody in Middle Earth are greedy slobs.
And everybody in Middle Earth loved to fight.
That’s all this movie was. It was one momumental “Outsiders-style” rumble.
Everybody was fighting everyone. Dwarfs were clubbing elves. Elves were pinning orcs. Wizards were staffing humans. Hobbits were cup-checking humans and orcs. Humans were orcing elves and dwarfs. Dwarfings were slamming hobbits and wizards and humans. Orcs were elving dwarfs. And humans were pounding hobbits, dwarfy-style.
I’m telling you, it was one big orgy of a rumble.
And that was just one problem with the film. The fact that there were so many people fighting each other seemed to confuse me. I mean, I didn’t even know who to root for. I think in the end I just wanted them all to die and let the animals rule Middle Earth.
And that’s another thing! Did someone back in Middle Earth own a “Honey I Shrunk the Kids” ray-gun that worked opposite and made every animal gigantic? I think with this film Peter Jackson ran out of ideas and said “Hey, I know how we can make this movie more awesomer, let’s make every living creature on the planet enormous!”
Everything was bigger. Big bats. Fat rabbits. Gargantuan goats. Mammoth mooses. Mountainous moths. There must’ve been a mad scientist living back there, creating these “massive mistakes of nature” and just tossing them out of his lab once he was finished with these demon spawn.
So I’m not too keen on those two things.
But what really got me was the story.
It’s simialar to “The Lord of the Rings” but instead it was a journey for a mountain and not a ring this time.
Also, it took too long to get through these three films. I didn’t read the book (because books suck) but from what people tell me was in the book and what was in the film are two different stories. I hear that the White Orc dies two minutes into the book. In this he is in it for the ENTIRE three films! He is one of the main characters!
And Radagast the Brown is never seen in the books… But he is in this trilogy.
And the book is wicked short… Why isn’t the movie?
And who the hell ended up with the Oakenstone? They kind of forgot about that little nugget.
And finally, this is one I couldn’t quite figure out. Who were the Five Armies? From what I gathered it was the Dwarves, Elves, Humans, Wizards, ONE Hobbit, Orcs, Ghosts, Animals, Fake Animals, Gigantic Ugly People, and whoever else was involved in this melee.
What a mess.
I don’t know. I think Peter Jackson may be slicing this piece of meat too thin. He did splendidly with the LOTR films. Maybe he should’ve stopped there. Or maybe he should’ve made this book into ONE film.
Or maybe it was just a money grab and he took us all for a ride.
With all that being said, I give this film 4 out of 5 Giant Noses.
And THAT’S why I’m a terrible movie reviewer.
(I kinda of liked it a lot. I just had too many questions.)
Matty W. Kelley, reporting.
mattywkelley.com
Fun Fact: Books are in libraries.
Fun Matty Fact: I HATE books… and libraries.