Watched
Battle of the Five Armies this weekend in 4K. The third Hobbit film and probably my least favorite LOTR film of the 6.
I had actually not yet seen this extended cut. In fact, I don't recall seeing this movie after it released many years ago.
A lot of the pacing of this movie is off so for 90% it just ends up being a giant clusterfuck of a massive CG battle.
The first act of the fight against Smaug is actually the climax of the second movie, so it starts with an 'ending' so to speak.
The tone is strange too. Some scenes are very dramatic and LOTR-like. Like Sir Lee, Cate Blanchett and Hugo Weaving fighting the servants of Sauron to try and free Gandalf.
Or the dwarves taking casualties as they try to take on the boss orc. But there's also a surprising amount of comic relief in the midst of a battle of life and death.
This is structured almost like a modern Marvel movie in that regard.
The effects do look a lot better than the other movies though. It holds up pretty well compared to say the CG of Return of the King, which was mostly just copy pasta.