Finally saw 5 armies last night.
I enjoyed it a little more than Jimmy I fear. Which, I guess was bound to happen.
For fans such as Jimmy that have read the book, and enjoyed them greatly I am surel, I can totally see why this movie is not on their list of favorites. Heck, even I hated the first two movie's over use of ComGen graphics that apperared to be made on a Commodore 64, the weird ass love story that just felt odd and the fact that they took one book and stretched it into 3 movies when 2 would have been perfect.
However, while I didn't care at all for the first two movies in this "epic", I kinda liked this one. I guess it was mainly because more happened, but I don't usually lean towards being an "action" guy so it is not just that. I think here with more/or better emotion shown through, deaths that were just perfectly portrayed and much better graphics, the movie just played better. It still took over 45 minutes to get to the point were my eye lids didn't want to close, but once we got there, yeah, it was a lot better.
Here are the main reasons why I feel that way (and yes there will be spoilers, but come on ...
)-
The fight with Sauron, the Nazgűl, the Wizards and Galadriel really made me sit up in my seat. Was that in the book? I guess it had to be but I don't remember it being described that strongly. Either way, that was a fantastic few scenes that was right out of The RETURN of The KING in terms of perfect use of ghostly images, action, color, tension, just everything.
The wierd ass love story actually paid off. When Kili bit it, the lady Elf ... Kate
, really had a great scene touching this "love" and feeling her pain the way she did.
The fact that I thought they would, but they didn't ... stretch out the death of Smaug (and I don't care who says what, I have pronounced it is Smog for years and I will continue to do so. Keep your Smowg. It makes more sense as "smog" with Tolkien's love of nature that the bad dragon be an item that is not clean or "Earthly" ... so everyone can just piss off!!!)
And like Jimmy said, Martin Freeman is just incredible in this. Dude should have won best actor award here. No doubt. I know I am coming more from a "fan boy" side than those that give out the awards and I love Mathew McConaughey, love the dude, but Martin just out acted him here. Best I have seen in a long time. Period. His freaking jaw when he was saying "bye" to the Dwarfs? That slight twist? That is what happens when you are holding back tears. It was PERFECT!!! Damn this dude killed it in EVERY F'n SCENE HE WAS IN!!!!!
And going back to death ... the death of Thorin. That personal battle with Azog was just expertly done. From start to finish just BAM!!! POW!!!
And there were other parts I enjoyed but those are the ones I woke up remembering.
Of course this movie doesn't save the title as a whole. The other two are just too damn drawn out and filled with stuff that doesn't belong or could have just been left out to make this a two movie series instead of three. It just should not have been three movies. If they would have combined all the aspects of the first two, even the damn love story if needed (as it kinda paid off) into one movie and then had this movie as the second, the series would stand proud right next to Lord of the Rings, but as it was ... I can see Jimmy's displeasure, even though I give this last one a little more stars then he would.