Review: The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies Extended Edition (2014) · 12:55am Oct 20th, 2015
Peter Jackson’s extended edition of the final entry in his Middle Earth saga does a wonderful job at not only fixing many of the flaws that bogged down the theatrical cuts, but also serves as a fitting end to the saga.
The direction is good and solid, and with the 20 minutes of new footage, the film is able to breathe in a way that wasn’t possible with the truncated theatrical cut. Plot lines that felt undercooked or too quickly resolved are now given the time to properly grow and develop, and other plot lines can be given proper resolutions, where in the theatrical they felt incomplete.
Also, with this new footage comes a welcome sense of visceral impact to the battle sequences, with Jackson cutting loose and really letting the battles feel like battles, with realistic violence and combat. Also, Alfred, a character who was pretty much a massive waste of time, is finally given his just dues, and is finally killed off, where’s in the theatrical cut, he simply vanishes from the narrative.
So yes, the extended edition of The Battle of the Five Armies is a far, far better film then the theatrical cut, and I’m giving it 4 out of 5 stars.
Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, I need to see this!
3483274 I saw it in theaters fora one night only thing, but the digital release is tomorrow I think