New The Hobbit 3,The Battle Of The Five Armies Movie Received Mixed Reviews From Major Critics
New Line Cinema (Warner Bros. Pictures) released their new action/fantasy film, “The Hobbit 3: The Battle Of The Five Armies” into theaters this past Wednesday, December 17th and all the top, major critics have turned in their reviews. It appears that they were pretty mixed, giving it an overall 59 score out of a possible 100 across 45 reviews at the Metacritic.com site.
The film stars: Ian McKellen, Martin Freeman, Richard Armitage, Evangeline Lilly, Lee Pace, Luke Evans, Benedict Cumberbatch, Stephen Fry, Cate Blanchett, Ian Holm, Christopher Lee, Hugo Weaving, Ken Stott, James Nesbitt, Orlando Bloom, John Bell, Manu Bennett, Jed Brophy, Adam Brown, John Callen, Billy Connolly, Ryan Gage, Mark Hadlow, Peter Hambleton, Stephen Hunter, William Kircher, Lawrence Makoare, Sylvester McCoy, Graham McTavish, Dean O’Gorman, Mikael Persbrandt, and Aidan Turner. We’ve added blurbs from a couple of the critics, below.
Brice Ingram at the Chicago Sun-Times, gave it a very good 88 score, saying: “Fighting — presented with Jackson’s usual double helpings of visual splendor, emotional oomph and low-key comedy — is what Battle of the Five Armies is all about.”
Joe Morgenstern from the Wall Street Journal, gave it an 80 grade. He stated: ” Now, thanks to this last film, in 3-D, the pleasure is intense, and mixed with awe. There is majesty here, and not just because we’re in the presence of magnificently regal madness.”
Todd McCarthy over at The Hollywood Reporter, gave it an 80 grade. He said: “The final stretch of The Battle of the Five Armies possesses a warm, amiable, sometimes rueful mood that proves ingratiating and manages to magnify the good and minimize the bad of the trilogy.”
Chris Nashawaty at Entertainment Weekly, gave it a 75 score, stating: “Like everything else in Jackson’s Tolkienland, the buildup to the climactic melee stretches on too long. But when it comes, it’s a doozy.”
Claudia Puig over at USA Today, gave it a 75 score, saying: ” The final installment of the Hobbit trilogy is the best, featuring more spectacular action scenes as well as the series’ most emotionally resonant moments.”
Scott Foundas at Variety, gave it a 70 grade, saying: ” If none of the Hobbit films resonate with “Rings'” mythic grandeur, it’s hard not to marvel at Jackson’s facility with these characters and this world, which he seems to know as well as John Ford knew his Monument Valley, and to which he here bids an elegiac adieu.”
Kyle Smith at the New York Post, gave it a 63 grade. He stated: “It’s adequately visionary, it’s routinely spectacular, it breathes fire and yet somehow feels room-temperature.”
Michael O’Sullivan from the Washington Post, gave it a 63 score, claiming: “Jackson’s storytelling at this point is so driven by green-screen trickery and digital legerdemain that he seems to have forgotten about human emotion.”
Sheila O’Malley over at RogerEbert.com, gave it a 63 grade, saying: “There are some wonderful sequences in Battle of the Five Armies, and the attention to detail is breathtaking (each different space rendered with thrilling complexity), but the film feels more like a long drawn-out closing paragraph rather than (like “The Desolation of Smaug”) a vibrant stand-alone piece of the story.”
Betsy Sharkey from the Los Angeles Times, gave it a 60 score. She said: “The finale is not an all-out disappointment. It should satisfy the franchise’s fans, and it does wrap up any loose ends you might be wondering about.”
Peter Travers at Rolling Stone, gave it a 50 grade, stating: “Talk about beating a dead orc. In dutifully completing his prequel trilogy to his three-part Lord of the Rings triumph, director Peter Jackson has sadly saved the worst for last.”
Nicolas Rapold from The New York Times, gave it a 50 score, stating: “Bilbo may fully learn a sense of friendship and duty, and have quite a story to tell, but somewhere along the way, Mr. Jackson loses much of the magic.”
Michael Phillips over at the Chicago Tribune, gave it a 50 grade. He stated: ” By the second hour of The Battle of the Five Armies, the visual approach becomes a paradox: monotonously dynamic epic storytelling.”
Mick LaSalle at the San Francisco Chronicle, gave it a 50 grade, stating: ” As Bilbo, Freeman is a pleasure to watch to the extent we get to watch him. His timing is brilliant — he gets the movie’s only laughs. He has tremendous sensitivity and an ability to seem like he’s about to say something — and then convey it without saying it. He could have made a great Bilbo. Instead he’s the one thing that has made this trilogy bearable.”
Joe Neumaier from the New York Daily News, gave it a 40 score, claiming: “There’s far too many moments of sabre-rattling, and too much confusion about who is aligned with whom, and why. Those who know and love Tolkien’s texts will have a vested interest. Everyone else may grow restless.”
Finally, Ty Burr over at the Boston Globe, gave it a 38 grade, saying: “Jackson has marched the modern fantasy-action epic into a thundering blind alley; the movie exhausts your senses without ever engaging your imagination.” Stay tuned. Also, get your favorite Movie stuff, and more by Clicking Here.
