The Battle Of The Five Armies

I must be truthful in terms of this. I once told you that I saw The Hobbit movies, and well I can honestly say I told you the truth, I might not have told all of it. I never wanted it to end, the adventures, but all things must come to an end no matter how much you try to stop it. Today was the first time I saw The Battle Of The Five Armies.

After finally claiming the mountain and the imminent death of Smaug, the dwarves and Bilbo seem to have completed their quest. But Thorin grew sick, a sickness of the mind took over him, the dragon was with the gold too long, it started to drive Thorin mad. But there were some who resisted the King under the Mountain, an army of men and elves marched toward The Lonely Mountain, trying to bargain for the riches Thorin swore they would possess. He would not part with a single coin, thus beginning the war. But all were decieved, for another army was approaching the mountain, Sauron conjured an army to gain a foothold in this world again, starting with the mountain. The battle of the five armies begun. This film does not take any time getting down to the war for the mountain. It takes maybe 25 minutes before all hell breaks loose, and save for the last fifteen or so minutes, there is nothing but fighting going on. I'd almost say this movies outdoes even Return Of The King standards of battles but with Return Of The King, we knew the stakes. It was a battle for Middle Earth, a fight for everything, but here we know the story goes on past this point so the battles lack so much punch. It's not bad, the fights are magnificent but it just lacks all the tension. You want to know how it all ends yes, and surprisingly the battles never grated and felt like there was no time to even breathe, so I was very happy about that but the film just was missing something. The best scene in the entire movie is when Saruman, Elrond, and Galadriel stormed the fortress and rescued Gandalf, that was un-flipping-believable! I would pay money just to see that again! I also noticed the story got very Shakespearian with Thorin, a king slowly being driven mad, forcing everybody away from him, bloodthirsty and not having even a second guess about killing one of his friends but luckily that subsides although we still do kinda end with tragedy and death. Actually speaking of death, I'm not quite sure what happened halfway through this movie, in almost all The Hobbit movies we got violence and quite a bit of severing body parts but the movies did a good job of hiding it or not making it too bloody but this friggin' movie has blood splurting everywhere! It's like if Peter Jackson went from Oscar winning director back to his Brain Dead days, of violent, gory, and exploitation days. You see blood just splash all over the place! I swear on my life I saw an R rating before the movie began. An R rating?? Oh I see, Tolkien was never child friendly! Maybe it was just with the extended cut. Oh yes, and free word of warning, you know how I said the extended cut of Lord Of The Rings was the only way to watch it? Well...with The Hobbit it's the exact opposite. The extended cuts add nothing to the story. In fact the extended cuts actually hurt the movie. I prefer the much shorter theatrical cuts. Just proving that longer is not always better. Do I think The Hobbit needed 3 movies to tell the story? No. Did I still enjoy the three movies for what they did? Heck yes! But I would still just stick to The Lord Of The Rings, no disrespect to The Hobbit, I greatly enjoy the movies and appreciate what they did, but Lord Of The Rings just knocked it out of the park for me. But of course, that's just my opinion. Maybe you will enjoy these three movies compared to the other three movies, you never know. Well, that about does it for Middle Earth here for The Dude, not unless I really want to talk about the 70s animated one, I do really like it but I doubt it shall come to pass. Thank you for joining me on my last adventure for the year, but don't worry, there is still much more to talk about before the month is through. Catch you all later on down the road.

The Desolation Of Smaug

Yeah, that....that's a way to end a movie.

The story continues in The Desolation Of Smaug as our travelling heroes inch closer and closer towards The Lonely Mountain and finally come face to face with the dragon Smaug. Meanwhile a much greater evil has been uncovered. To be truthful, I think this is my favorite of The Hobbit movies. The story progresses at a very good pace, never once do you get bored (And in some cases fixes problems of the book.), the characters are still fun and we get two new arrivals to the cast. An old friend from previous films, Legolas Greenleaf plus an entirely original character created for the movie, that's right a character not created by Tolkien is featured in the movie, Tauriel played by the absolutely stunning Evangeline Lilly who I have to say is a great welcome to this series. She doesn't feel out of place at all, she is an honorable and caring figure, and somehow is Arwen fully realized. Not many people know Arwen had much bigger roles planned in the films beyond horse riding and sexy crying, she was planned to be a warrior who fought at the battle of Helm's Deep but for some bizzare reason she got cut out, which sucks but now we got a true representation of an Elven warrior in full action, she is awesome. But not as awesome as something scaly, breathes fire, and flies. It's time to talk Benedict Cumberbatch people. Short version, best part of the entire movie. Long version, Jesus fish this is incredible! I mean what a casting choice, Ben really makes this creature leap off the screen, he is cunning, he is devious, he is everything you would want in a villain. After I saw the trailer for this movie, heard his voice, saw Smaug, it became very apparent I had to read the book. So I did, and you could bet millions of dollars when Smaug speaks in the book, Ben was heard in my head. The reveal of him in this movie is perfect, for those of you who just saw the trailer and said, oh I've seen the dragon now. No. You have seen hardly a thing. He is huge in this movie, and for the first half of his scenes you only see him with Bilbo (Insert Sherlock reference here.) which makes him look even bigger. If there was ever a single reason to see this movie, yeah it's Benedict Cumberbatch as Smaug the dragon. And the ending...oh God, the ending. I saw this opening day, when that scene happened I was not very happy. Stupid cliffhangers right when I don't want it to stop. It still makes me mad, I want to watch the last movie right now. But I want to hold off until tomorrow so I can review it properly. I mean let's get down to brass tacks, if you stuck around to see the first movie then you will be hooked by the second if you haven't already. I know fantasy is still an underground film genre, but Lord Of The Rings really is what made it big and popular, so I understand if not many people can't get their heart into it like I have. And that's fine, opinions are never wrong but I always try new movies and tell people about them regardless because you never know if a movie will stick with you or not. But regardless, we have one more movie to wrap up so I will join you on the conclusion to this journey tomorrow.

An Unexpected Journey

A great start to an unforgettable adventure.

An Unexpected Journey is the first chapter to The Hobbit trillgy, a precursor to The Lord Of The Rings following Bilbo Baggins on his quest with a company of dwarves to reclaim their homeland from a great dragon. It's almost basic fantasy storytelling 101, but Tolkien made it into something so much greater in the book which I am proud to say I have read but have yet to claim The Lord Of The Rings as fellow completed readings. I was quite hesitant to learn it would be a trilogy of movies, because the book itself is a simple children's adventure book, but as first movies go I was impressed. The way Peter Jackson started this and what all he included did justice to the book, but now having greater technological use for the film warrants staggering visual effects, some so massive it would take dozens of viewings to catch everything. Middle Earth has never looked so incredible, both in familiar locations and all new ones that were yet to be discovered in the original movies. Also familiar cast members like Ian McKellen, and Hugo Weaving make returns with a whole new slew of characters, with the hero Bilbo played by Martin Freeman who I already enjoyed as an actor, but grew to love him even more after seeing him in this movie. He really nails my vision of a young Bilbo out on an adventure, he gets that persona down and interjects much humor and enjoyability in this part. All the dwarves headed by Thorin played by Richard Armitage, are great with all of them having identities and individual personas of their own, with not two feeling or even looking similar to another which does nothing but flesh out the already developed world, and you can easily pick which dwarf is your favorite. But one of the main aspects of the movie that makes it much better than what people give it credit for, is how the stories intertwine. This is not just a straight up potrayal of The Hobbit, because well Tolkien wrote The Hobbit first and intended it as a simple story for children and had no connections to his future books beyond setting and select few characters, so this movie does an incredible job laying the seeds of The Lord Of The Rings movies while still telling it's own story. The movie is different in tone as well, whereas Lord Of The Rings was an emotional fantasy epic that dealt with world changing events, The Hobbit is more or a less just a exciting adventure movie set within the world. Either way you cut it, An Unexpected Journey is a great start to a series of films that I can't wait to talk more about. Join me tomorrow as we approach The Lonely Mountain....

The Fellowship Of The Ring

What the hell? You're reviewing Lord Of The Rings when Star Wars is coming out this week?! I already did Star Wars, so just read my reviews on those then go see the new movie, then get back to me and read these reviews during the holidays.

So why exactly am I reviewing The Lord Of The Rings movies? Well to be perfectly honest I got so used to a new Hobbit movie every December, and the actual meaning of the movies is companionship, loyalty, and friendship, qualities found in this world especially around Christmas time. I'm actually going to review the extended cuts of these movies cause they are the only true way you can watch The Lord Of The Rings movies. Needless to say I am a huge fan of these movies, have been since 2001 and it does not take long to get you interested. Just the opening sequence hooks you, and not once does it get slow, it keeps a steady and interesting pace. It gives you plenty of time to get to know the characters and the world. It is an epic tale of a Ring Of Power that if not destroyed can plunge Middle-Earth into eternal darkness, so it is up to our heroes to destroy it before it is too late. The term perfect cast has never ever been more true than with this cast, Elijah Wood is the only Frodo Baggins ever, Ian McKellen is wise and friendly as Gandalf the Grey, Orlando Bloom is nothing to me but Legolas he just has the physique of an Elf, friggin' Christopher Lee (God bless him) is pure menace as Saruman the White, just to name a few and everybody is so perfect. New Zealand is the most fitting backdrop for Middle-Earth on this planet, and I need to visit there one day. The music by Howard Shore just...my God. The best examples of it are actually the songs with singing in Tolkien's Elvish and the Black Speech of Mordor. I would recommend watching the theatrical cut and if you loved it enough to view the extended cut, it adds to the movie in every sense of the word. Every thing they added makes the movie better to the point where, really it kind of ruins the theatrical cut because of the lack of the additional scenes. It makes the film better in my eyes, but the theatrical cut is still a great film on it's own but the extended cut is leaps and bounds better. If you think you are hardcore enough and want to jump right into the extended cut alone, you rock! You will greatly enjoy it and it will not hurt you if you have never read the books written by J.R.R Tolkien, cause I haven't read the books. Not yet anyway and I still praise the movie and can't wait to read them. Even if you know nothing about Lord Of The Rings, the film, either cuts of it will fill you in. It is a very accessible movie to non-fans which is good if you feel that you might not have the proper beforehand knowledge and might find it a bit daunting. Anyone can watch this movie so have no fear. I hope you enjoy it, and you can find the extended editions just about anywhere, probably cheaper now than they were when first released and the best part is it includes both cuts of the movie and not just the extended cuts. So tune in tomorrow where we continue the trilogy.