The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies

SF: Finally a Hobbit film I liked! Just like the previously two installments there are plenty of added extras that really have no place being there but most of them I could live with. The pace was good, I didn't fall asleep or notice the three hours. A visual feast and a nice recovery for the series. As a bonus the ending doesn't take twenty hours! If your a Tolkien fan you've probably already seen it but if you haven't them I pleased to say this is worth a watch. 7.5/10

50Eggs: I reckon this is my favorite of the Hobbit trilogy, just edging Desolation of Smaug. There are some fantastic fight scenes but the best bits were again the added exposition that didn't appear in the original book, which add much needed weight to the story. So that's the end of the road for the Middle Earth films, but there's one more I'd like to see...a 'what if' story showing what would happen if Smaug had killed Bilbo and claimed the One Ring for himself. 8/10

DonkeyB: n/a

Overall: 7.75/10

X-Men - Days of the Future Past

SF: This righted every wrong in all the X related movies for the past 10 years. Being a Marvel devotee, my love has been tested, again and again. Five minuets into this and all I can say is - you had me at Warpath. This is a fantastic blend of action, story telling, drama and humor. The effects are rather impressive too. Did it divert a lot from the original comic yes, but it remained tantalizingly good.  I've already been to see it twice and the post credit scene has me waiting eagerly for the next one. As there is nothing I can really fault...
10/10

50Eggs: I still remember watching the X-Men cartoon doing it's own version of 'Future Past' way back when I was a sweaty teenager. It was a great script then and it still is now, but for some reason I didn't love this as much as I loved the prequel 'First Class'. But considering I gave that 9/10, it's not really a criticism. This is another fine addition to the X-Men series and whets the appetite for the one I've been waiting for for 20 years...X-Men Apocalypse. 8/10

DonkeyB: I rather enjoyed this, I think I sort of understood the ludicrously unoriginal time travelling plot! Read SF's review if you're a comic book adaptation person because she is in a much better to judge on that aspect, but as someone who has universally hated every single one of the X-men films, and actually looked forward to Saturday morning swimming lessons when they clashed with the cartoon all I can say is that even I was pleasantly surprised. Its about as good as Winter's Soldier 7.5/10

Overall: 8.75/10

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

SF: On a par with the first installment. That is to say, from a cinematic point of view this is beautiful, has amazing effects, lovely scenery and the production value is excellent. The first hour was rather enjoyable, however I did find it dragged a great deal towards the second and third hours. However plenty of brilliant things about this (the effect of Thranduil's face) but equally many awful additions which made no sense to me at all (the love story) and didn't enhance the story in anyway. Dragon looks amazing! But wasn't thrilled by this movie as a whole. Of course I'll still see the next one 6/10

50 Eggs: I've just re-watched the first on DVD and, on reflection, it's actually fairly boring. This is much better though. All the things I was looking forward to seeing were in there, and I loved the 'extra' scenes scrounged from Silmarilion and Unfinished Tails, such as Gandalfs face-off with Sauron. I do agree with SF on one point though - the love story was ridiculous and unnecessary. The last act was the best, with Cumberbatch making an awesome Smaug. Credit to Freeman too - he is so much better than Elijah Wood ever was. 8/10

DonkeyB: n/a

Overall: 7/10

The Hobbit - An Unexpected Journey

SF: Here we are following Bilbo on his big adventure set many years before the events of Lord of the Rings. I am a huge Tolkien fan. So really it would take a great deal for me not to like this. Somehow with all the hype I wasn't that excited. The idea of three films baffled me and still does. First there was a great deal of padding out which seems unnecessary and probably rather boring for non-die-hard fans. However as expected the production value was pretty impressive and very much in keeping with the previous movies. Sadly, as it was filmed in 48 frames per second everything looked too real thus a bit more fake and CGI then it should have (edit - we saw it in 24fps but still looked more fake than LOTR - oh dear). Sometimes fantasy films need that ethereal air to the camera work, new Zealand does still look beautiful though. That all said, the acting was very good and on the whole I was pretty satisfied and didn't notice the running time as much as expected. I didn't leave the cinema desperate to see it again (as I had done with the previous LOTR films) but I did still enjoy it (yes even all the back story references to wider Middle-earth histories). An unsurprising 7.5/10

50 Eggs: OK so first off, the decision to make this into 3 films was a bad one, undoubtedly driven by dollar signs. On the other hand I think anyone who thought this could be done in just one film was being hugely naive. The book of the Hobbit was written in an entirely different style to LOTR - a single page of the former contains as much story as a chapter of the latter. Furthermore, matching the tone of the earlier films necessitated bringing in exposition from The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales. This is what Peter Jackson has done really well, adding flesh to the bones of the story, giving it added purpose and emotion that isn’t evident in the standalone book (which was after all aimed at small children). I was pleasantly surprised by this.8.5/10

DonkeyB: I think I should declare from the start that I am a Tolkien sceptic, a denier if you will. Middle Earth is not my thing. In Primary school Matthew Mold was reading The Hobbit and suggested I try it. I don't think I got beyond chapter 2. I have never even started Lord of the Rings- the furthest I have ventured is having to find a reproduction of a map as some sort of test of computer literacy as a fresher at Uni. I didn't watch the first Lord of the Rings film, I fell asleep twenty minutes in to the Return of the King (which I believe is the second film - edit - its the third film) and I have seen part of the ending to the last film once when it was on TV: I say part because it seemed to have at least five endings and I honestly can't remember how many of them I sat through.

It is therefore safe to say that I was never going to like the film very much. But by any standards it is far too long. I think it could quite easily lose 40 minutes. Obviously I don't know what more lies in store, but it seems unlikely that there is six hours more material to make up the next two films. For a start how many more cliffs can there be for some or all of the band of 14 to hang over?

On the plus side apart from the length and [Bilbo?] Bagginess of the film there isn't much to object to. It looks stunning, the acting is fine, the script is adequate, as a fantasy film it is hard to imagine anyone doing one any better. I'm not sure what purpose the film really serves though except to provide the first of three more films for Ring nutters to add to their Lord of the Rings marathons. 6/10

Overall: 7.33/10