The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies

This is about a week late, but here is my review for The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies. I’ll start by saying that I am a big fan of both the Lord of the Rings trilogy and the previous 2 Hobbit movies. With that begin said I’m a little conflicted about this movie. Yes, it is the conclusion of the Hobbit Saga so it’s satisfying to finally see a resolution to the story that started with the first Hobbit movie. However there is something about the movie that just rubs me the wrong way. On one hand it has amazing action and battle sequences, however the actual plot of the movie leaves me wanting more. The drama seems at times a little too forced, the characters behave in ways that don’t really make sense and there are certain scenes that I felt were completely unnecessary. Honestly I would have much rather the first 15 to 20 minutes of this movie just been a part of the ending of the last Hobbit movie. I never liked how in the Desolation of Smaug the film ended on such a big cliffhanger. The battle with the dragon didn’t really seem to fit in with this movie and it bothers me that Peter Jackson just split the story like that just so more people would want to watch this latest movie. The rest of the film deals pretty much with just a single battle which is one of the reasons why I feel like the drama felt a little forced, there are so many parts of the movie that are just unnecessary in my opinion. I know it sounds like I’m being too harsh, but maybes it’s just because I had higher expectations after watching the previous 5 movies in the LOTR franchise. At the end of the day I feel like the film could have been much better but that doesn’t mean that I think it’s a bad movie, I was still very entertained, and I’ll probably watch it again (I really recommend watching the 2nd movie again before going to see this one, I personally didn’t remember a lot of the things that had happened and felt a little lost while watching this one, especially with all the lingo). It may not be a perfect movie but it is still worth it if you’re a fan of the Lord of the Rings movies and have watched the previous 2 Hobbit films. To sum it up in one sentence, the film was good, but it could have been much better. 3.5/5