Battle Royale

Rating: 8/10 (18 December 2014)

My expectations for this film where that it would be as good of a closer to the Hobbit as "LOTR: Return of the KIng" was to the LOTR trilogy and an adequate transition to the LOTR trilogy. I hoped it would not drag as much, and there would be enough action and important character screen time. While it has been awhile since I've seen "LOTR: Return of the King" in its entirety, upon first reflection this installment succeeds. I could not believe how FAST this movie flew by, which is always a great thing when a movie has a 2.5 hr run time. After starting the film off with a confrontation between the dragon and Laketown residents, Jackson sets up the looming "battle" by putting the armies in place. While there are things that are a bit far fetched here in Middle Earth, it works for the most part, because fans of the book and the movies eventually are going to get what they want. HUGE battle scenes, MASS amounts of destruction, and LARGE numbers of dead orcs. It's just a matter of getting there. It doesn't make sense that 12 dwarfs hold up in the castle abandoned by the dragon and feel confident enough that reinforcements will eventually arrive, or that the elves or Laketown residents don't overpower them sooner and force their hand, as it seems quite obvious the dwarfs have no countermeasures available other than a few feet of busted stone between them and whoever else wants to enter. This felt off. Another thing that felt off was Thoren's (Armitage) intrinsic greedy struggle with possession of gold. No matter the situation, person, or conflict, Thoren seems determined to stay within his stronghold and not negotiate any amount of settlement or riches. I feel this conflict and struggle could have been portrayed a bit better, as it was just never that realistic to me, although it is sometimes difficult to show internal struggle. When Thoren does become the charismatic leader he usually is, the movie is all the better for it, even though if it's only to fight brainless orcs. Another detail that was interesting and a bit far fetched was the details of the battle. The battle was between five armies apparently. We don't see all five for awhile, and when the fifth shows up we don't get a very good glimpse of the actual battle, just some things happening quickly and from afar. Also, the dwarfs and elves were in this battle and we didn't get to see much of them in action. We see them lined up and in armor and marching, but as far as actually fighting, there's not much footage of them. We see the people of Laketown fighting, but apparently filming small dwarfs or cunning elves is a bit too complicated here. I was curious to see how the elvin people actually fight after seeing their leader and Legolas (Bloom) in action, but alas, no such luck. The orc armies this time around don't seem as detailed as they were in the LOTR films. They are covered in armor and in most scenes we see dwarfs, humans, etc. having no issue taking these monsters down. Not as graphic or gross as we see later in LOTR films It's like each person, dwarf, etc. has been trained in extreme mortal kombat and they know exactly where to strike for a quick kill and each swing gives them more strength for the next. Maybe minor quibbles, as I said, this film goes quickly. The battle is entertaining. Once Thoren and Legolas finally get into action, I could not get enough, and the choreography and special effects were top notch. When the battle finally ends I thought for sure the film had another hour to go, but there was only a 12 minute wrap up of things. As opposed to "LOTR: Return of the King" which had at least a half hour going away party. Definitely doesn't feel as painful here. While there were some minor quibbles, the characters you appreciated from the first two Hobbit films are here again and the action is a plenty, this is definitely one I'm going to have to catch again in IMAX.