OldBoy

Please continue pre-release discussion here.

Movie:
"The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies" (Starring: a mix of old and new Jackson Hobbitrons)

Release Date:
12/17/14

Rating:
PG-13 (for some intense perilous action and brief strong language throughout.)

Running Time:
144m. (2h. 24m.)

Budget:
$250 million (estimated)

IMDb Synopsis:


IMDb Info and Rating:
8.3 (22,743 votes as of 12/13/14

Rotten Tomatoes:
Fresh:34 Rotten:15 (69% as of 12/13/14)

Metacritic:
62 metascore ('Generally favorable reviews' as of 12/13/14)

Trailer:
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Poster Art:

caligulathegod

Just saw the marathon of the trilogy and loved them. Very worthy entry in the series.

covenant

Curses! I have to wait until all my kids fly in so we can see it together.
But I want to see it nowwww....

stvn1974

So I take it there is a battle involving five armies in this film?

majorjoe23

The font makes it tough to distinguish, but for budget reasons they made it a battle involving five Arnies. I predict Schwarzenegger will win.

Bandoman

I thought it was the Battle of the Fine Armies, each army consisting of Larry Fine clones.

RichC2

It is, but it's armies of victoria secret models.

Mabuse

I have a question about the "the". Is it The Battle of the Five Armies or The Battle of Five Armies? I'm seeing it both ways lately.

hanshotfirst1138

Down from 75% to 59% on RT . Damn . It's rotten .

Why So Blu?

Jackskeleton

What the fuck, Hobbit? Just ending like that. I was expecting at least 5 or 6 fade to black but only be surprised that it wasn't the end.

This movie needed far more fake endings.

Anubis2005X

Wish I was dying to see this like with Return of the King back in the day. As it stands, I'll wait until the weekend to catch this one. Still looking forward to seeing it, just kinda eh...

fumanstan

Watching this today for a work event. I had to rush to watch Smaug last night, as I hadn't seen it and didn't want to be completely lost. I'm not a very big fan of these movies and found the Hobbit particularly uneventful, but hoping at least for some cool action set pieces.

Solid Snake

For the film preceding it but...eh.

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fumanstan

2 1/2 stars for me, but as I mentioned I admittedly have not been a big fan of any of the Hobbit or LOTR movies, with the Hobbit films of slightly less quality so I'm well aware that my thoughts don't line up with a lot of you here.

It was basically what I expected out of this movie, but just never really felt as grand of a finale as it should have been. The last fight seemed like it lasted an entire hour of non-stop action, which generally is fine and entertaining but in turn lacks an exciting climax and build up to an end. Instead I thought Azog/Thorin and the end of the fight was largely deflating, especially Azog's last hurrah (I might have read the Hobbit a long time ago, but don't remember any of it so I don't know how it plays out in the book). Having just watched Smaug, I was also let down in how that movie ends in a "cliffhanger" of Smaug escaping to destroy the city, only to have him killed 20 minutes in to this movie. That lessens my response to Desolation of Smaug quite a bit and the way it ends, and enforces that this really should have just been 2 movies. It's also kind of messed up that this little quest of the Dwarves basically causes so much inadvertent death and destruction.

My problems with the Hobbit movies over the LOTR movies has largely been the cast of characters, and a glaring weakness in making any of the supporting characters interesting. The movie seemed to push a lot of relationship stuff, especially regarding the three Elf characters, which to me all fell flat. Particularly the little speeches about love. I didn't need to see the Alfrid character repeatedly show how he's a spineless wimp either, but also get away with it at the end! I also continuously have problems with what powers the wizards and characters actually have, as they seem awfully inconsistent and used for convenience at various points in the movie. I found the same here, and was chuckling to myself at the end of the large battle as I had the same issue with eagles coming to save the day as they did in the first movie in deus ex machina fashion.

Jackskeleton

It really almost feels like Peter Jackson was so afraid of the criticism of having too many endings in ROTK that he decided to leave NO ending for this one.

It feels as if the film itself was barely invested in the outcome of its own story. "Yo Bilbo, ya wanna stick around to see what happens to all of us rest of the characters you vaguely remember the names of. Perhaps even see the aftermath of this battle or stick around for your buddies funeral?

"Lol, nah Boofer, Imma ghost out of here to beat traffic back to Bag Ends"

hanshotfirst1138

Jackson doesn't strike me as the type who takes what reviewers say to heart, if he reads them at all. For better or worse, there has been a little change in his style or excesses.

Jackskeleton

The flip side to that is that there's a good 30 minutes of material that will be added to the EE, and pictures of the funeral are out there. So it's pretty clear that he trimmed a lot at the end for the sake of wrapping it up.

Why, after three films, would you want to rush the pay off/ending/resolution to this one, I have no fucking clue. But it sorely needed something more towards the end other than "The Shire needs me, I must go now"

Dr. DVD

Saw it. Definitely the strongest of the three, if that means anything. Definitely some good stuff in this one, but some not so good as well. There never was room for a love story in any of this, and it should never have occurred, nor anything with Legolas as a featured player. I will admit that as a PT to LOTR, it works quite well, and blows the SW:PT out of the water.

Good:


Bad:


Ugly:

Deftones

I am doing the same. Currently watching the blu ray of desolation so I can see this tomorrow morning.

Artman

It met my modest expectations. It's more or less the same as the previous two, but right now I'm thinking this might come in last for me, I'm sure the eventual EE will help it some.

The fights just seemed too silly and anti-climactic, which is probably the most unfortunate thing for me... the audience was laughing at them. But there was some nice quiet moments in there, with some good acting. Awesome imagery of course, I do wish there was a little more variety in the battle though, I was getting a little tired of the bright daylight...

Looking at it now, the 2nd/3rd films turned out pretty messy the way they were split up. Smaug should've been wrapped up at the end of the 2nd one, with the town attack being the finale instead of the furnace/alien3 scenes they came up with. That would've made this one shorter, but at least it would've made more cohesive sense.

hanshotfirst1138

I'd like to rent the DOS EE, the inability to rent more special releases is probably the only thing I miss about Blockbuster.

Solid Snake

Watching this in 3 minutes. In 3D. Hope it's better than Hobbit 2.

musick

way to set the expectation level at such a high mark .... LOL

Patman

So, I saw it in 2D, non-HFR. It was a pretty exhausting movie to sit through, and came away thinking they really should have just split "The Hobbit" into 2 films because the flow just lumbers along, and I was losing interest along the way.

I give it 2.5 stars, or a grade of C+.