Delivers only on the title

Rating: 7/10 (15 December 2014)

Quickie Review:
After the events of Desolation of Smaug, the dragon unleashes his wrath upon the people of Laketown. Thorin reclaims his kingdom, but is consumed by an obsession for all the gold under the mountain. Meanwhile, rest of the Middle-earth races turn their envious eyes towards Erebor. Each of them aiming to exploit its riches, leading to an epic battle that will alter the future of Middle-earth. This movie is the epic conclusion to the Hobbit story, and the name is fitting. There is a grand scale to the battle, and the stakes are high. However, it did not quite strike the balance between action and drama. In the end, Battle of Five Armies is a fitting end to the series of movies and is a great cinematic vision, but as a standalone there is much to be desired in the quieter moments.
Full Review:
I am a huge fan of Lord of the Rings, sitting through a 12 hour marathon on more than one occasion. So when the Hobbit movie was announced I was excited to return to Middle-earth. Then it was announced that the movie would be split into a trilogy. I really don't like when a story is split, and the problems that come with that decision is most pronounced with The Battle of the Five Armies. Nevertheless I had an enjoyable time watching the movie.
When the title is The Battle of the Five Armies, it had better deliver on some epic battles, and it does. It's really interesting to see the motives of each of the armies (for some more in detail than others). Seeing how the battle unfolds, the uneasy alliances, clashing of dwarfs, orcs, goblins, humans, elves certainly had me at awe multiple times. This is a cinematic spectacle that should be experienced on the big screen. Also there was no weak link in the performances, but that is expected by now in the sixth film of this universe.
It is strange that I overall liked the film but my positives for the film only include the scale of the battle and the actors. Beyond those two aspects there are actually quite a lot of problems with the movie, and as I mentioned this is all because The Hobbit story has been split into the three films. You already know that all good stories have a beginning, a tension building middle, a climax, and then a resolution. Since The Battle of the Five Armies is the third movie of a singular story, we only get the climax and resolution. This means that the majority of the runtime is spent only on the battle. As beautiful as those scenes were to experience, I must say at one point it all becomes a cacophony of mindless sword slashing. As a result you start to lose any care of what is happening on the screen. I like the scale, just not the length of time spent on it. That leaves the quiet character moments in the movie to pick up the emotional weight to make us care again. Unfortunately these were also too few and far between once the battle starts. Especially if you haven't seen Desolation of Smaug since last year's release, these scenes might be even less effective because the wait between the movies depreciated the natural progression of the character relationships.
If I were to judge The Battle of the Five Armies just on its own merits, disregarding the two movies I'd rate it quite low. Yet I will admit that as a conclusion to the trilogy as a whole, this movie does a decent enough job. If you want to get the best out of the film I strongly recommend you to re-watch both An Unexpected Journey and Desolation of Smaug.
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