'The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies': Farewell Middle-Earth

It is a sad time for the citizens of Middle-Earth. The cinematic tales of such a vast universe has come to a close and the war is over. After 1031 minutes (That's 17.18 hours not counting the extended editions) of J.R.R Tolkien based journeying, it has reached its inevitable end. 'The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies' finally makes its appearance in theaters around the world to conclude a very beloved chapter of our lives. The question is whether or not it leaves the citizens of The Shire satisfied from a journey well made or disappointed from a long road that could've used some shortcuts. Well.....

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'Shadow of Mordor: The Video Game - The Movie''The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies', directed by Peter Jackson, is the third and final installment in The Hobbit movie series. Smaug decides to take out his rage on the village of Lake-town after being chased away and released by Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman), Thorin Oakinshield (Richard Armitage) and the Company of Dwarves. Meanwhile, Thorin starts to lose his mind over the massive amounts of gold and treasure found in their homeland in the wake of evil brewing in the land. Sauron unleashes the wrath of the orcs upon the Lonely Mountain and Bilbo and the Company find themselves caught in a massive clash that the fate of Middle-Earth. There is so, so, so much going on in this last string of The Hobbit. This grand climax brings just about everyone together and all of the worlds finally get to meet. With so much going on it's difficult for any particular actor or character to stand out, and that's okay. It felt like there was a nice balance between re-establishment of the characters (it helped that there were two whole other unnecessary movies to bring them in) and the three million things that were going on. At no point did I ever feel like there was too much happening at once. Honestly, it felt like the good ole' Lord of the Rings dynamic again and it was welcomed with open arms and warm hugs.

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It took a while but I think The Hobbit finally found it's footing in the cinematic world. It's a pity that it finally got a hang of things in the last movie of its trilogy but hey, better late than never. Unlike the other two Hobbit films, 'The Hobbit The Battle of Five Armies' had that secure feeling of cohesiveness and necessity. I'm not the biggest fan of the decision to make such a short book into a three part "epic" but I guess someone's got to make the dough somewhere right? Well played Peter Jackson. This was a good movie, a pretty good movie in fact. Probably gonna go somewhere on the best movies list -hint hint-. The world of Middle-Earth really felt up to scale again after seeing the places we all know and love and it was refreshing to see the constant drive of the plot through each and every character's unique motives. The action scenes were really nice and it was good to see some of the classic LOTR violence back as well. There are few things as refreshing as the beheading of an CGI Orc, I must say. With a name like "Battle of the Five Armies" it would only make sense to have an all out slaughter of orcs, elves, dwarves and various other creatures. You bring five armies together and things won't be pretty. There isn't much else to say except that Peter Jackson stepped his game up and it made for a pretty good goodbye.

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Alas, despite the upgrade the goodbye was still a bittersweet one. Bitter because Middle-Earth is going bye-bye but surely sweet because there were some things that I love that I won't see again. One of the biggest complaints with The Hobbit series is that there was the switch from the authentic costumes and makeup to the glossy video-game-like shine of computer generated animation. I don't have anything personal against CGI but the animation in all of The Hobbit movies was just so...not good. It just didn't fit in well with everything else and the difference in scenes was so painfully obvious in this movie that all I could do was roll my eyes. I had the same sort of complaint with 'Spiderman: The Video Game - The Movie' 'The Amazing Spiderman 2'. There were a lot of scenes that just felt way too...video-game-like. Thankfully though, 'The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies' restrained itself a bit. There were some really well crafted scenes that you can tell were made in studio by hand. Another problem I ran into when watching this movie was that there were some scenes that just ran way, way, way too long. A large portion of the movie had revenge and vendetta fights so naturally these would need more attention than the woodland elves tearing orc scum to pieces. My goodness were they drawn out. It came to a point where it was already obvious how things were going to end but things kept dragging out, probably for screen time. This wasn't a deal breaker but boy was it unnecessary.

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Honestly, I really don't have much to say about 'The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies'. It had a lot to offer but with the original 'Lord of the Rings' trilogy in existence the Hobbit Trilogy will always pale in comparison. That being said though, this was the best movie of the trilogy. 'The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies' finally found its footing and it made for a fitting farewell to the series. Strong storytelling and reminders of the old 'Lord of the Rings' trilogy has made this a goodbye that every Tolkien fan should appreciate. Farewell Middle-Earth, it's been real.