- The forbidden love between Dwarf and Elf. Oh, yeah the female Elf.
- Radagast the Brown and his Magical Bunny Sled. I don’t care if every child on the planet cries for a month there is no excuse for this Jar Jar-esque turd to be on the screen.
- Galadrial, Saruman, Elrond, and an epic battle against Sauron and the Nazgul.
Um, if these three fought against Sauron like a mere 40 years before the events in the LOTR why is everyone so shocked in the Fellowship when he rears his ugly head? Image from the movie t shirt category. - Legolas. Orlando Bloom is all over this film like a fly on fly food and has gone from a minor cameo scene in the last film to pretty much the protagonist. I guess the producers still lie awake at night in terror that we the idiot audience will forget that this film comes from the same people as the LOTR (actually based on quality and story that is a reasonably fair assumption to make) and need to be reminded every three minutes of its origin. In a rare example of artistic integrity Viggo Mortenson refused to do Aragorn for this film based on the fact that having any character in this film from the last series besides Gandalf, Bilbo, and Elrond was stupid but I guess Orlando was sick the day they did story continuity. As an aside they managed to shoehorn in a reference to Aragorn at the end with all the grace and subtlety of an M1 Abrams tank trying to fit into a compact parking space.
The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies Review Part 1
“Best of the Series.”
Best of the series is a term that is bandied around a lot these days usually as an excuse for a film that is slightly less repugnant than the rest of the Hollywood effluent that typically flows into our sight holes. 
Revenge of the Sith was the best of the Star Wars prequel series but as a stand alone movie it is dried excrement on the end of a stick which is also made of dried excrement. The last Twilight movie was like receiving a full lobotomy with a power sander but was modestly more watchable than the rest. Only in the golden world of comparison can some films be considered decent if only like the first meal of actual food regardless of quality after a month of eating rotten horse meat, tree bark, and gravel. (R2 image courtesy of the Star Wars t-shirts category)
This was not always the case. The Empire Strikes Back is generally considered the best of the Star Wars series but is a great movie by itself and the other two are either good or watchable (Ewoks aside). The Godfather 2 is one of the great films of the 20th century but Godfather 1 was awesome as well. Somewhere there is a parallel universe wherein creating a film franchise does not mean watering the individual films down to the level of transparency. The best of a series should be a wondrous film experience even for someone who did not see the other films, did not read the books, or is not a ravaging fan boy.
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The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies Review Part 2
So the Hobbit. Like I said, the best of the series. Better in action, story, plot cohesion, and character development than any of the other two. However the question I had to ask myself was “If I had never read the Hobbit nor seen the first two film would this film stand up” and the answer is an emphatic no. It is not a good film. The other question I asked myself was “If I had seen the first two films but had never read the book would I have enjoyed this film?” That is a more interesting question. I would at least be familiar with the events leading up and relatively familiar with Biblo, Thorin, and Gandalf but honestly there is no reason to give two farts about the other 12 dwarves, the elf love interest, Legolas, Bard the Bowman, or the rest. In my opinion there is nothing here drawing you in to this series. 
There is more pull in any three back to back episodes of Game of Thrones (image courtesy of the Game of Thrones t shirt category).
But, as a fan who as read the book there was some really cool stuff here. The scene where Dain Ironfoot shows up to confront the elves and men of Laketown was out of the book and really cool. The battles were kind of cool (although really visually confusion. For some reason they opted to put all the Goblins and trolls into full body steel armor in order to fight Dwarves in…full body steel armor. I blame Michael Bay for the grey on grey fight aesthetic). This film stuck to the original story more than the others and as such ended up being…the best of the series. I wonder if there are any lessons to take home from that?
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The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies Review Part 3
However for the hardcore fans of the book there was also a lot of really dumb stuff to annoy the crap out of you. Weirdest of all was the appearance of Shai Hulud for no apparent reason. Azog the Destroyer (another character featured heavily in the book-not) somehow managed to import some sandworms from Dune and have them do…nothing? They were digging tunnels or something but then before they could do anything fell back into the Well of Bad Ideas that Peter Jackson seems to drink from. In fact all the most annoying parts of the last two movies (from a book perspective) are here in force including:
Some new Bad Ideas included flying bats (who joined the sandworms in making like two appearances and then shuffling off the screen like a kid in a 3rd grade play who just wet himself on stage), goblins who are bigger and badder than the baddest Urik-Hai you’ve ever seen, cata-trolls, and a long lost elf treasure.
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The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies Review Part 4
This movie suffers from the “We have to make this one biggerer and badderer than the last ones!” disease and has the net result of being kind of stupiderer. For every cool battle scene there were five that were plain dumb (mostly involving Legolas). Suspension of disbelief is one thing but we all know how gravity works so the more you warp that the less real the scenes look and feel. You can’t stick two broken ends of a bow into a log and use it to launch a ballistae bolt. You can’t run up falling rocks or launch yourself through ice 10 feet in the air. The coolest things about the LOTR battle scenes is they were epic without being ridiculous. This film lost all that. It also had a lot of the action smothered under the PG-13 rating like Jack Nicholson in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s next but that is to be expected. Heaven forbid we make this film less accessible to the kiddywinks or require parents to make an active determination what entertainment is appropriate for their kids.
They need to be bigger hit the visuals as well. The first series had 12 foot trolls and you know what would be cooler than that? 30 foot trolls! Oliphants? Pshaw. We have giant Graboids (nerd cred if you know where that came from. No Googling). We definitely need to have another city under siege just like Gondor so look out Dale! Remember that desperate battle between Éowyn and the Witch King? Now we have an even more desperate battle between Thorin and Azog. 
You can almost see the storyboard artists desperately trying to think of ways to insert things from the LOTR but more epic like a kid trying to improve a classic music t shirt with a Bedazzler.
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The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies Review Part 5
I’m not going to bother with the story recap. This film more closely follows the book than any of the Hobbits and honestly if you didn’t read the book I don’t know why you are even reading my blog. I’m sure there is a Jason Stratham movie coming out soon that you will enjoy.
2.5 of 5 Meh
So good or bad? Honestly as much as I rail against this whole series I have to say you should probably watch it. If you saw the first two then for sure. It got a 60% on Rotten Tomatoes and I’d say that’s probably fair. Do yourself a favor and don’t watch any of the LOTR movies prior or you will end up hating it. The difference is I have two copies of each of the LOTR movies on DvD (regular and deluxe extended version) and am good to watch any of them about once a year but will never go out of my way to see this film or either of its predecessors again. It just won’t stick like the other ones. Take the kids so they can learn valuable lessons about solving conflict through brutal violence and then flush it down with every minute of reality TV you have watched in your life. Oh, yeah spare yourself the extra $3 for 3D. I saw it in 3D and barely noticed. I think normal screen resolution has gotten to the point of illustrating what a bogus scam 3D really is. 2.5 of 5 phasers.
Thanks for reading. Sorry I haven’t posted anything in 8 days but the Holiday rush has been killing me. Lots of people needing t-shirts apparently. 
I guess it’s a decent gift although I sold a large amount of Jaws t shirts. Not sure how that fits into the holiday spirit. Things have slowed so I will get back on the horse for sure. Talk to you soon.
the Infamous Dave Inman
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