Review: The Hobbit The Battle of the Five Armies (2014)

Me and Allie were texting each other this morning and I mentioned whether we had posted our review of The Hobbit.  Much to both of our surprise and shock, we hadn't even written it.  Our excuse is that we both saw it not long before Christmas and then the excitement of Christmas and presents took over.  We were both pretty amazed that we missed it though as we both loved it.  Lucky there is two of us to remind each other....

To think you reviewed The Fault in Our Stars twice before reviewing this once...shocking, I tell you, shocking! Technically, I wrote this one before the second Fault in our Stars review but was waiting on your verdict before I could publish ;-)

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies is the third installment of The Hobbit trilogy and it picks up where the second one left off with Smaug heading to Laketown and causing destruction, until Bard steps up and saves the day (swoon!!).  This however, leave the mountain unprotected and soon word spreads that the gold is up for grabs, bringing five armies together for the ultimate battle.

Did we really need Bard as the title image for this?! Could we not have had my lovely elven king instead? Or Bilbo himself!? Sigh... Nope, I started it, I chose the title image...but you can have the second one....

Yay! Thanks :)

I think this was my favourite of all the Middle Earth films not just The Hobbit trilogy, I was engrossed throughout (unlike the second instalment where I fell as well until the giant spider scene) and I understood the story.  I still don't understand most of the LOTR story, making it quite hard to enjoy sometimes.  I did find the Smaug scenes at the beginning a little bit odd, they felt like they should have been at the end of the last one, however I think that would have made the second one the longest film ever and this one a bit short (in Middle Earth movie terms) so I guess that's why it was done.

After reading the book from being far too impatient to wait for the third installment, we really didn't need three parts. As much as I enjoyed The Battle of Five Armies, it was almost literally a giant battle scene made 100 times more dramatic than in the book. Which I do understand as the book is for children, but unnecessary regardless.

I still feel a bit sad that we will never know what happens to the characters between this movie and the LOTR movies, particularly Tauriel.  As soon as I got out of the cinema, I googled her to see why she wasn't with Legolas in the next lot of movies and it turns out she wasn't in it because she was made up.  She was never in the books, therefore was never considered in the LOTR's movies and was specifically made up for The Hobbit Trilogy.

Yeah, again, another reason why three parts just weren't needed. Every story needs a romance arc I guess? It was a nice touch though and I did really love Tauriel.

The ensemble cast were brilliant as always, a particular highlight for me being Richard Armitage his portrayal of Thorin as he begins to lose his mind is played out incredibly. 

There were a few character entries, that I think may have had more relevance in the book, Saruman for example in the short scene with Galadriel and Gandalf appeared unfitting to the rest of the film and a little redundant.  Maybe there is more explanation to this in the book? Any readers want to enlighten me?

Now I'll probably make myself sound like an idiot, and a much smarter fan will call me out on this as I've only read the Hobbit, but from what I heard the scenes with Saruman and Elrond and the others were put in to forge some kind of bridge between the end of the Hobbit films and the start of the Lord of the Rings ones. Thanks! (Not just a pretty face you know)

But yes! I loved the cast as much as I did in the other films. Richard Armitage was particularly brilliant as the good guy you wanted to shout at for being an ass!

Anyway, back to the review.  A great finale enough action to keep you entertained but not so much that can no longer tell who is fighting who and I actually understood the story which is a bonus... Now I need to do a marathon of all 6 films over a weekend, see if I can understand LOTR any better!!

WHYY can we not give half scores?! I don't want to open that can of worms but this is one of those scenarios I was on about before we even started this blog! It's a 7.5 from me...7 seems too harsh but I gave The Desolation of Smaug an 8 and I preferred that one to this... We are not getting into the half score debate again, you got 'out of 10' in stead of 5 so schtum! ;-) I'm trying to work out what 7.5 would work out to be if we used that system...3.77777/5?

Review: Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)

UPDATED:

You'll know by now that although I have a few Marvel graphic novels knocking around, I'm more of a DC girl. Understandably then, when I first saw the trailer for Guardians of the Galaxy, I had no idea what was going on. I watched this film the other night mainly because I felt I had to; the trailer didn't excite me at all to be honest.  This is weird, because I don't have any graphic novels lying around and the trailer for this had me jumping up and down in my seat, so when I realised it came out while I was in the US on holiday, I had to find the nearest cinema (and lucky for me it was an IMAX!) - Happy Jenna!

So, if you've been living under a rock and don't already know what's going on here, Guardians of the Galaxy is about an odd bunch of outlaws who eventually form a team who try to save the world.

The team is formed of leading man Peter Quill/Star Lord (Chris Pratt), Gamora (Zoe Saldana), Drax (Dave Bautista), Rocket the racoon (voiced by Bradley Cooper) and loveable tree, Groot (voiced by Vin Diesel).

I want to just say right now before I continue that I really did enjoy this film, so anything that I whinge about is purely me being picky. I find it much easier to pick out flaws in films I enjoyed for some odd reason. 

The film opens to your usual comic-book scene, a heart-breaking family tragedy. Seriously Marvel, can you stop it? Five minutes into this film and I'm crying, I was sold an action packed space film with a bucket load of comedy! A few tissues later though and we're into the story that ties our 5 heroes together.  Ditto, I was in tears, as you all know I am a sucker for a sob story so it didn't take much!!

I loved the little introduction scenes, but Rocket and Groot just owned every scene they were in. Sorry Star Lord, but you really weren't the leading man here. Where did Groot come from though? We got a backstory for everyone but him. I guess we wouldn't have understood it anyway, as all Groot says is 'I am Groot!'. Which provides many laughs throughout the film actually.

My favourite was by far Rocket, his sarcastic humour and general presence stole every scene, maybe a first for Bradley Cooper?!  Still no entirely sure why they used a high profile (probably expensive) actor to voice Groot when he had a total of 2 lines?!  Any ideas?  And Peter Quill, Chris Pratt where have you been hiding all my life (I think it was under a layer of pudginess) this man is beautiful and funny - swoon!!!

We also get introduced to our film's main bad guy, King Thranduil Ronan the Accuser, who wants to destroy the galaxy. I'm not too sure why, to be completely honest, but let's face it, he needs to be stopped.  I hadn't even noticed this until you mentioned it, but there is no real back story as to why this guy wants to destroy the galaxy and himself, but hey ho, every superhero film needs a bad guy!

This film was simply beautiful to watch in terms of visuals, it really was. The action scenes in particular were amazing and I wish I had seen them in IMAX. The humour just never stopped either and I think it'll still be just as funny when re-watched, especially that prosthetic leg moment! Considering I had no expectations whatsoever, I was really pleased in the end. Only one moment made me groan, which was the *spoiler* 'I hope he doesn't realise I switched the real artefact with this completely identical fake one I somehow obtained!' part. But only that moment.  Actually, I had a bone to pick with the ending as well: Why did this artefact that can destroy entire galaxies not kill Star Lord, why is he so powerful?! Thoughts?

I found this film to be an experience, for a start it was a live action movie that I actually enjoyed in 3D (this is extremely rare with me and I've discussed 2 in the last week!) but also because I didn't go in with any expectations.  With the likes of Superman etc as I know the stories and the backgrounds, I expect them to be good.  I knew nothing about GOTG, therefore I had nothing to base an opinion on, I think because of that I enjoyed it so much more!  The 3D didn't make any of the action scenes difficult to watch (which is my usual peeve) and it made some of the flying scenes look incredible, especially in IMAX. 

The comedy was the best part by far, Rocket and Groot were hilarious but they also skipped out of any cheesy or awkward moments by throwing a joke in.  This is so different from the other comic book movies I've seen where they love their cheesy, love in moments.  In fact, the only real serious moment I could think of (Peter and his gift) finished with a comedy twist.

The characters all seemed to get the right amount of airtime and enough back story to make you care about what happens to them, which is impressive with five lead characters (although one is a tree!).  I think I heard there will be a sequel, I hope there is but now I will have expectations so they will have to step it up a notch!

I don't know how to rate Guardians of the Galaxy. I'm under strict instruction not to give out half-points, in fact I had to argue out of having a 5 star rating system, but I'm sat between an 8 and a 9. It was better than 8 for sure, but I've seen better films that I gave a 9. Ugh...I'm going to stick with an 8, and maybe change my mind!  Sorry but I just think 1-10 is enough, half points just make it that much more complicated! And if you keep moaning we will go back to 5! ha!

This would have been a 10 except for my one annoying gripe (see above, spoiler in grey!) which knocked it down to a 9!