0-5 Shots: The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

Not from the juiced-box but the soundtrack: Billy Boyd – The Last Goodbye

[Press ‘Play’ for maybe the only thing gayer than a hobbit]

For those reading this the day before the US release, here’s the smart phone proof i got to see it before y’all. Don’t hate the player, hate me.

Ramblings: Happy Ending

Final Proof: 3½ Shots

3 & 1-2 shots

You know how you get drunk on bumblewine with wee tiddlers in the Land of Nodd? The yarns they spindle numb your senses and you feel the weight of night petals settle over your eyes and pull you into Slumberland like a boat of Fire Mead. You’re able to dull out the incessant blades of their boredom as they harp out of tune tales meant for children and petty criminals. Just as you decide you’ll suckle the last dram from the bottom of the caphorn and be on your way, the stories finally become interesting. Like the whelm of the liquor, their tales turn to epic sagas of bravery and sacrifice, of blood and courage, of death and magic. You find yourself captivated by the heartbeat of their tongues, your eyes are regaled by their words and you’re happy you stayed the course and settle into the comfortable inebriation of the night realm. That’s what The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies was like.

Nobody wanted to see this movie less than me. i already saw the first one (The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey), and if that wasn’t bad enough (and it was pretty bad, trust me) i even saw the second one, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. That’s how bad i want to please you, and trust me, it was pretty bad.

So i was all set to sleep through this third and – thank you fucking god – final installment of this most boring orgy of hobbit porn but then something happened i could never have counted on. i actually liked this movie. It was pretty fucking good.

What did i like about this one i didn’t like about the others? Uhm, what’s the word i’m looking for… Oh yeah: EVERYTHING. Like in the first two movies Peter Jackson couldn’t decide if he wanted to make a kiddie movie or a barely intense action flick and so he went to both extremes and the film got lost in the middle. Or there was tons of talking in the other two. People and non-people alike just walked around yapping about nothing at all. And there were moments of action but they were so spread it it reminded me of my sex life and this depressed the shit out of me more than the depths of boring we descended into.

But not with The Battle of the Five Armies. The movie kicks off in high gear with a dragon attack and doesn’t slow down much from there. There’s enough action but, more importantly, less useless dialog and i won’t even talk about the final battle which takes up the last third of the film which is pure spectacle.

Hell, i didn’t even remember the snooze-fests that were the fist two films and i still understood what was happening here and was able to follow along. You know what was too bad? This film is a lot closer to the original LotR trilogy and if Jackson had made the first two Hobbit movies like this one, he would’ve ascended into Assguard (or whatever) and hung out with the gods.

As it is, at least he finished on a high note.

Buzz Kills (Watch Out for Spoilers)

Sex: 0

Not even a kiss. Then again, looking at the cast, that’s probably a good thing. And now that i think about it, there probably was a kiss between Tauriel (Evangeline Lilly) and Kili, her Dwarf (or whatever) boyfriend. The good news in that sentence is that Evangeline Lilly was int his movie, so i get to spend some time looking up pictures like this.

Evangeline Lilly Bar None Wallpaper – Click on the Shot for a Wallpaper

There’ll be some more shots of her in my drawers at the way bottom of this review.

And Evangeline Lilly wasn’t the only hot actress in this one. We were blessed enough to have a few minutes of screen time with Cate Blanchett as Galadriel, and i was pretty glad-real that a woman who looks like this appeared in the film.

Cate Blanchett Bar None Wallpaper – Click on the Shot for a Wallpaper

There’ll be some solo shots of her rolling around in my drawers at the bottom of the post as well.

Silken Butterflies

They tried to hide how hot Peggy Nesbitt (real life daughter James Nesbitt, the actor who plays Bofur) was but despite limiting her screen time to a tragic little, her beauty shone through. She played the oldest daughter of some Lakeville hero called Bard, but we’ll be remembering her face a lot longer than his. Because it looks like this.

A Smoke

Drink: 0 Shots

Yeah, there was even less booze here than there was in the other ones.

A Smoke

Rock & Roll: 4 Shots

4 shots

Four shots and i don’t have to tell you it had nothing to do with the music and don’t make me prove it by forcing you to listen again to the song i already posted at the top up there. Nope, the four shots here is all action and there was enough of it in this movie. Sure, there could’ve been more but at least what they had here was killer.

The movie starts out with Smaug attacking Laketown and this is done really fucking well. Jackson doesn’t shy away from the action, he gets right up into it, close and personal, and he doesn’t skimp on it either. There’s some meat to the battle and it isn’t repetitive either. Plus, the special effects are so good you forget they’re special effects.

Then if you think that was good, wait until the final battle. It takes up the entire last third of the movie and while some people may think this is too long (like those who whined about all the action that was in the third Transformers), the epic war didn’t feel drawn out at all. The whole time i watched it, i was thinking about the grandiose spectacle of the thing and really had a great time. This kind of action is what going to the movies is supposed to be about.

Boring Technical Crap

Written by:

J.R.R. Tolkien – novel “The Hobbit”
Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, Peter Jackson & Guillermo del Toro – screenplay

Directed by: Peter Jackson

Starring

Evangeline Lilly – Tauriel
Cate Blanchett – Galadriel
Benedict Cumberbatch – Smaug / Necromancer
Lee Pace – Thranduil
Luke Evans – Bard
Richard Armitage – Thorin Oakenshield
Orlando Bloom – Legolas
Martin Freeman – Bilbo Baggins
Ian McKellen – Gandalf
Manu Bennett – Azog