This review is massively biased and basically involves me telling you how sad I found the movie, read on if you dare.
I cried all the tears when I saw BOTFA. It was literally the most traumatising movie experience of my life (and I am still not over it). I'm watching Lord of the Rings at the moment, and the feels are so much more intense now. I pretty much started crying again when they mentioned Thorin while they were in the Mines of Moria.
During the movie, I was sitting next to my friend Vida who is, thank goodness as good at remaining unemotional in the face of the deaths of attractive dwarves as I am. So yeah, we basically bawled our eyes out for like the last three-quarters of an hour of the movie while our less emotional friends and miscellaneous members of my family observed us with a mixture of disbelief and cynical amusement (they're a hard-hearted bunch). I feel slightly less pathetic than I might have due to the fact that the grown man seated next to us was also crying his heart out as well, I sympathise random stranger I really do.
The deaths were just so tragic though! First Fili dies afraid and alone, then Kili dies. I didn't really adore the character of Tauriel, but I actually didn't mind the whole Kili/Tauriel love thing in the third movie, mainly because Kili dies while she's trying to save him and I have a thing for tragic love stories.
And don't even get me started on Thorin's death, (all the tears). You have to admit though, dwarves can be a bit thick sometimes, I was all like Thorin, don't follow Azog while he's floating under the ice, it's obviously a devious trap, and guess what, it totally was. I suppose he had to though, so his death could be all sad and poetic and all that (and it definitely was). I cried the second time I saw the movie as well, yeah, I am that pathetic.
Overall, I totally loved the movie. I am a massive, massive fan of all things Middle Earth, so I have loved The Hobbit Trilogy. It was really nice to get three more movies after I thought the whole Middle Earth thing was over after LOTR.
I didn't really have a problem with how the movies deviated from the book, when you actually read The Hobbit, you can kind of tell it was written as a kids book. It's a great book and perfectly written, but I can see why some of the content and the tone was changed, the dwarves are well, a bit too jolly and the coloured hoods would have just made them look like the seven dwarves off Snow White. Plus, they had to tie The Hobbit movies in with LOTR, so they had to be a bit darker and involve Sauron and all that kind of stuff. Personally, I really enjoyed all the little links back to LOTR and I liked that the movies were quite dark.
My favourite moments from BOTFA were:
- Galadriel. She is totally awesome, just saying. It was super cool how it looked like she'd passed out or something and then she went completely terrifying and blasted Sauron and his minions all the way to Mordor. It was like the most epic thing ever. Loved that entire scene basically. It was hilarious how Gandalf was being carried like he didn't weigh anything. I also loved it how the 'nine rings for mortal men doomed to die' lines were said in the movie.
- Thranduil. He's so pretty and majestic. I've had a massive crush on Thranuil since the first movie when he came all the way to Erebor with his massive army to say 'LOL no'.
I like how the elves are really graceful and the way they fight is beautiful, especially when it's Thranduil doing the fighting. Highlights for me were when he rode his elk through the gate, speared like six orcs and then cut off their heads, and when his elk got killed and he did a spectacular drop and roll off it and came up fighting, FANGIRLS!!!!! Seeing the elves makes me want to be all athletic and fit and be able to swing from trees and jump across moving barrels, and I get motivated to go and exercise for like 5 minutes and then I see a cupcake and it's all over. - Death of Smaug, I like how they made you think Bard was totally going to slay Smaug with his puny long-bow but then it was all like dun-na-na BLACK ARROW. I laughed when he used his son as an aiming mechanism, that was hilarious.
- The battle of the five armies. Billy Connolly as a dwarf, riding a pig into battle = hilarious+awesome. I definitely was not expecting that to happen. The dwarf shield wall has to be one of the best parts of the battle. I was totally expecting the orc side to slam into the dwarves and then suddenly a bunch of elves just vault over the top #majestic!
- When Thorin realised he was basically becoming Smaug. I loved how the gold from the melted statue hardened over the whole floor, wish my house looked like that. I loved all the symbolism of that scene and how it looked like there was a dragon under the gold and then the dragon sort of melted into Thorin's shadow and he realised that even though Smaug was dead, he was becoming like him. Extra points for his majestic entrance after he decided to go back to being Thorin Oakenshield!
- How the end of The Hobbit was the beginning of Fellowship of the Ring. I was hoping it would end like that and I wasn't disappointed.
- Alfrid. I thought he had WAAAAY too many scenes. I just thing that some (most actually) of his screentime could have been given to more deserving characters like Fili or Kili (and I wouldn't have complained at more Thranduil time!) If I was Bard I probably would have just let the angry townsfolk kill him just to stop his annoying whining!
- I would have liked there to be more Fili scenes, he's Thorin's heir and everything and a cool character so I wish he'd had some more scenes focused on him.
What did you think of BOTFA? Let me know in the comments.
Also, which is your favourite Tolkien book? I'm trying to decide what to read after I've finished re-reading The Hobbit.
