Hobbit

Husband and I saw The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies! 

I turned off the flip setting on my phone so this photo is backwards...

Honestly, I was least impressed with this installment. It wasn't bad exactly, it just wasn't gripping or exciting to me. I think the mistake was in dumping the audience straight into the climax of the story with no preamble. There was no anticipation building up to a grand battle. There was just grand battle with no emotional attachment. It would probably works fine if you watched the other 2 movies immediately prior, but that's an awful lot of work to evoke an emotional response. It seems like they could have tossed a little into the 3 HOUR finale

Let me start over, You may recall that Desolation ended with a gold-covered Smaug flying to destroy Lake Town. Armies picks up immediately afterward with Smaug laying waste to the town. That's a perfect cliff-hanger for a commercial break, but it's been a YEAR since I last interacted with these characters. I need a little more context and build-up if I'm expected to care when they start dying. There sequence cuts to the dwarves back at the Lonely Mountain, where all is relatively calm, just looking on. I honestly think my entire viewing experience would have been vastly different - and more enjoyable - if those 2 scenes had just been switched. Show the dwarves running out after Smaug flies off, build a little anticipation so I feel their pain when they watch the destruction for which they are responsible.

SPOILERS, but as anyone whose read the books will know, some dwarves die. And because it had been so long since we've (I've) seen them and the movie spent no time focusing on the characters, but just showed up 3 hours of bloody fighting, I didn't really care. 

As for the effects... I do not recommend the HFR. The beginning of the movie is all up close and personal with the citizens of overcrowded Lake Town, and the HFR made it look like they were in fast forward. You catch every minutia of their movement, so they seemed always about to fall over or slightly drunk. It worked much better on the grandiose battle shots, but clearly the technique needs some work before it's really effective. Galadriel looked a little like she was in the wrong ring related movie for a bit, and Thorin's cousin seemed to be 100% CG. I'm not sure how they accomplished making an actual person look like he wasn't, but they did. 

After all that though, it was a really fun movie. I laughed more than I cried, for the reasons above, but I don' really like leaving movies sad, so that's fine with me. I'd definitely recommend you spend the time and money to go see it. 

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P.S. The ending song was terrible!