The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies - First Impressions

Yesterday, I was fortunate enough to snag tickets to what was, more than likely, a once in a lifetime experience: The Hobbit Marathon in IMAX, 3D and HFR (High Frame Rate).  The marathon culminated in The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, which will open in theaters everywhere this weekend.   First of all, in the interests of keeping on topic and discussing the film itself, I will save my remarks on the HFR (44 frames per second) and the pros/cons of a marathon for follow-up posts.

 As the capstone bridging the gap between The Lord of the Rings and the first two installments of The Hobbit trilogy, this film is tasked with the responsibility to wrap-up its predecessors and set-up the films to follow. Overall, I would say that it does a decent job of both.  While I won't be doing a full-review at this time, so as not to spoil it for those who haven't seen it yet (probably most of you), I will give you my first impressions to help you decide if it's a film that you want to check out.

The Battle of the Five Armies follows Bilbo and his dwarf companions as they strive to defend their newly acquired treasure from the armies of elves, orcs, and men that all feel they have a claim to it.

In terms of the storytelling, I enjoyed how despite the massive armies from various races, this film is uniquely based around a series of personal, individual conflicts.  Rather than just watching nameless soldiers battle, Peter Jackson raises the stakes for the audience by putting our protagonists in suspenseful, near constant conflicts (sometimes against each other).

As is the case with The Return of the King, the tone of the film is much more serious, with only occasional humor sprinkled in here and there.  This is to be expected given that the scope of the conflicts and inherent danger are substantially greater.  What the film does quite well, in my opinion, is occasionally step away from the madness of war to explore deeper subject matter, such as the flawed humanity of its characters.  Most of these moments take place as we watch individuals succumb to and overcome their humanity. You can expect several heart wrenching scenes, as well as some heart warming ones.

While I would argue that this is the most violent Tolkien film to date, with long sequences of intense action, the absence of gore keeps it in the realm of a PG-13 film. I would definitely recommend being wary of any child under 13 seeing the film though, as some moments can be frightening/disturbing for younger (and older) viewers. Lastly, at least as an initial impression, I feel that some of the action sequences are a bit too lengthy, such that other elements of the story are not properly developed.

In short, if you like intense, large-scale action movies with some deeper storytelling elements, you'll probably like The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies.  While I won't say that I left the theater completely blown away, I certainly enjoyed the film and, coming in at almost 1 hour shorter than The Return of the King, it's a substantially smaller investment of time!  Let me know if you see the film and what you think of it.