A bloated conclusion

Rating: 7/10 (17 November 2018)

This review contains spoilers.
The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies is the conclusion to the Hobbit trilogy. This movie is the sequel to The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. The movie follows the group of Dwarves as they enter the Lonely Mountain and prepare to fight a battle. The Battle of the Five Armies is directed by Peter Jackson.
The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies is still as bloated as the previous movie, The Desolation of Smaug. This is a massive problem pas it makes the movie narratively vapid. Much of this causes the movie to be fun to look at, but the scenes do not have much natural weight behind it. Even the massive battle in this movie that is built up across the series had nothing going for the narrative. There is much going on in this movie but it did not feel fulfilling.
The entire plot with Thorin telt superfluous like the previous movie felt with its story-lines. The movie should have focused on this story and tried to hint at it more in the previous movies. The plot should have focused on what the book focused on instead of the new characters the movie features.
Once again the movie is impressive visually in both the standard frame rate and 48 frames per second. Anyone that really watches this move for the visual eye-candy will enjoy it. There are many sequences in this movie that are pretty to look at. The Laketown and battle sequences are the highlights here.
The love plot with Tauriel and Kili reaches its conclusion here. As expected the plot lead nowhere. This plot like the rest of the movie was not fulfilling for the narrative as this event just happens. I believe that if the re-shoots did not happen this would make the movie better.
Overall, The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies is a bloated mess. I would still recommend watching it for the conclusion to the Hobbit Trilogy.
Grade: C