I tried to sum up my feelings about the Hobbit films as briefly as I could, and this is what I came up with;
If you watch the Hobbit films expecting the charming adventure story you read in the book, you'll be disappointed.
If you read the Hobbit book expecting the flashy nine hour war movie you watched at the cinema, you'll also be disappointed.
A lot of us rail against these films for their inaccuracies, misinterpretations, but all of this could be ignored if not for the massive popularity they incur. The Rankin/Bass musical cartoons may be whimsical and cringe-worthy, but are easily ignored. These films are not. They've entered the public conciousness and have, in effect, become how a lot of people view Tolkien's works. When I read the books they never came across as action thrillers, as war obsessed, or as ridiculous as the films would have us believe. Sure, there's ridiculousness in there, but it is of a different, more quaint quality.
Back when I was in high school and I mentioned to a teacher that I was reading (re-reading, more likely) The Lord of the Rings, she dismissed it, saying, "Oh it's just men with swords hitting each other for three hours." At the time I argued that the books were not like that, mentioning that Helm's Deep takes up about ten or so pages and is mostly talking. But that stuck with me as being poignant. That the films were affecting how people perceived Tolkien.
This was always my greatest fear for The Hobbit adaptations. That it would be more "men hitting each other with swords for three hours" and that would be how people would view it. Sales of the book might go up, we may even catch more new readers who take to the books. But we will all now struggle against the perception that The Hobbit is another generic war fantasy.
Perhaps that's another one of my gripes. The Lord of the Rings films, for all their faults, were still pretty revolutionary and affected films going forward. Much of the cinematography and special effects developed for those films has been copied and pasted non stop. I don't feel the same will be true of The Hobbit. Nothing blew me away, nothing surprised me. If anything, it was an extension and exaggeration of what Jackson has already done.
So, that's my preamble. What did I think of The Battle of the Five Armies?
I enjoyed the performances of most of the actors. Richard Armitage was brilliant, though the odd effects and slowness they put on his voice just made it seem ridiculous. Lee Pace was fabulous, even if his lines were mostly eye-roll worthy, his eyebrows made up for most of it. Cate Blanchett performed Galadriel very powerfully (literally and metaphorically), but again the voice distortion was a bit too much for me.
As many have said, when Tolkien's lines are used it is great, because you have brilliant actors reciting brilliant dialogue. But much of the script was innocuous at best and cringe inducing at worst.
The action was kind of boring mostly as we've seen it all before, or could have extrapolated much of it from previous films. Although some of it was just plain bonkers. There's a troll with maces for feet and hands, a troll with a battering ram for a head, trolls with catapults on their backs, and trolls with massive bellies who are just standing around waiting to get shot or stabbed. The ware-worms were kind of silly, vanishing as quickly as they had appeared.
Dain Ironfoot was really distracting as he was clearly CGI. I very nearly lost patience with the film at that point. Maybe they couldn't get Billy Conoly down to New Zealand to film his scenes, maybe he didn't look good in the make up. But that computer generated video game character was just unnecessary. I'd rather they'd recast, to be honest. Much as I enjoyed Billy's performance, it just irked me. Practical effects and make up almost always look better than CGI, and here was a perfect example. After two and a half films of proper dwarves we get a video game dwarf. Perhaps he fits in with the video game goblins, but not with his kin.
Not seeing Kili and Fili die defending Thorin with shield and body was a disappointment, but one I saw coming. Setting up Tauriel as a love interest gave Kili something to die for, which left Fili to be flung from the rooftops unceremoniously. Wasted opportunity, I suppose.
Bard was quite a nice character and I didn't have too many problems with him. The Grim Faced Man as he was in the book, had his grim moments. The killing of Smaug wasn't as bad as I had been expecting. Still very silly, still very ridiculous. But I'm glad he flew up into the sky and posed pretty much
like one of Tolkien's illustrations.
The death scene of Thorin was nicely done, though. Not completely accurate, but hearing Tolkien's words (near enough) almost got me to tears. Richard Armitage played the part right I think and he gave Thorin a very Boromir-like farewell speech.
I have adored Balin in these films. He was always one of my favourite dwarves and was glad to see him still being the most reasonable one of the lot. Ken Stott plays him very well and I couldn't help feeling happy whenever he appeared on screen. But part of me wanted him to casually mention, at the end, "You know, I've been thinking about Moria recently... Ori, fancy a trip?"
Bag-End being auctioned off was a nice touch and I was glad to see Lobilia getting some screen time.
The last scene with old Bilbo recreating the meeting with Gandalf from Fellowship of the Ring was a nice touch. I did, however, notice they cut out the "you haven't aged a day" line. I wonder why?
Anyway, that's what I thought.