The film The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies is the third part of the highly succeeded fantasy-adventure trilogy which is based on The Hobbit, or There and Back Again written by J. R. R. Tolkien. The book was published on 21 September 1937. The film was published 17 December in the United States. The film was directed by Peter Jackson and written by Jackson, Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, and Guillermo del Toro. It was Produced by New Line Cinema, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and WingNut Films, and distributed by Warner Bros.
Personally I liked the camerawork a lot just because it was just as I like it because they made it so you would feel like you would be in the movie. In example there was scenes where the camera gets crushed under falling rocks and also as if you were there in the middle of the hysteria caused by fleeing innocents. The soundtrack was obviously superb just as in The Lord of The Rings films, which represents the time after The Hobbit. The soundtrack had strong ambiences what made the scenes and events much more thrilling. The special effects in the film were exquisite. For instance the fearsome dragon Smaug was excellently made to look vivacious. As well as the fire that Smaug exhaled over the town of Laketown. Also all the ”orcs” were made to look perfectly realistic.
In my opinion Martin Freeman did a magnificent job on capturing the main character’s, Bilbo Baggings’ sipirt of a noble and sincere hobbit. I also liked the acting by Richard Armitage as Thorin Oakenshield. Armitage did a great job when acting like he has completely lost all of his empathy and become completely mad. But still there is one that stands out from everyone else and he is Ian McKellen as Gandalf the Grey. I don’t know why but I have liked him the most of all characters since the beginning of The Lords of The Rings. And despite his age during The Hobbit he did an excellent job in all of the fighting scenes. I also liked the dwarves with their own silly sense of humor.
The film started with a few minutes long battle where Smaug incinerates Laketown and is after a while killed. The fact that killing the dragon didn’t take anything else but one shot with one big arrow which hits perfectly, disappoints me. But of course Smaug had to be killed or else he would’ve probably made the whole Middle-Earth a big wasteland. What really annoyed me though was the idiotic decisions and the lack of empathy of Thorin Oakenshield. Actually I’m not sure if a single big fight between the good and the bad is enough to cover a two and a half hour film. But to be honest it doesn’t really bother me in any way. I enjoyed watching the movie whatsoever and nothing else matters to me.