The best of three, I managed to watch it in one breath, but I'm still not thrilled. The whole trilogy leaves the impression of a pale copy of the "Lord of the Rings".8/10

The Battle of the Five Armies title is a great exaggeration of what an army entails. The movie is about more or less a skirmish with some rather imaginative weaponry. The plot goes sideways and after two three hours long previous films we get a two hours and a half mess that is half completely over the top battle scenes and the other half people talking out of their asses. It is pure chaos, where orcs are either mighty unbeatable beasts bred for war or cardboard armor wearing morons easily defeated by fishermen's wives and children, as the action demands. Things start to remind of Pirates of the Caribbean, and not only because it's the same actor doing kind of the same stuff. There is even a prolonged ending with Bilbo Baggings returning to the Shire, almost as if wanting to undo the good idea in the Lord of the Rings movies in which they removed the boring book ending with Saruman taking refuge in the Shire, and that portrays hobbits as petty bureaucratic creatures, rather than kind and resilient and courageous as declared everywhere else in the films. If I enjoyed the first two movies and wanted to see how it will all end, the third was a ridiculous failure, trying to do too much with too little: making a country brawl look like an epic battle, keeping the lighter more children oriented tone while killing characters and trying to express deeper heroic emotions, trying to somehow raise on the same level three organized military groups and a bunch of fishermen and animals and tying up lose ends that were there only to make this a trilogy rather than a pair of decent movies. It is now when all the jokes about the eagles made in good fun in the first two movies (and in Lord of the Rings as well) turn smirky, when the only logic to the plot and action seems to be the panic of production companies trying to achieve their financial goals rather than tell a good story. It is here where the disappointment that everyone talks about when referring to The Hobbit movies raises its ugly head and grows on the small mistakes of the previous two movies. So in order to enjoy the trilogy, one must somehow detach themselves from the ending and see it as an imperfect finish to an otherwise fun movie, maybe imagine their own.

Picking up after Hobbit 2, the dragon has been tricked into giving up his gold and he is very angry. Therefore, he decides to punish Laketown again and burn it to the ground, killing all. However, Bard (Luke Evans) has a magic arrow and one chance to fell the fire- breathing beast. He does so, hooray! But, some have been killed and part of the town lost. Now, however, there is a new threat. Thorin (Richard Armitage), the leader of the dwarfs, does NOT want to honor his promise to share the treasure. This leads to a great battle of five armies, including the cretin-like Orcs, dimwitted but strong. Gandolf cannot immediately help, as he has been captured by a powerful necromancer. Yet, the eagles free him and the armies begin fighting. Which army will prevail? Who knows, but Bilbo just wants to go home. This exciting "last chapter" has some strong scenes of violence, which may not be suitable for the youngest viewers. Especially impressive is a battle on an icy, mountainous terrain. In general, good defeats evil and it is a joy to watch Bilbo (Martin Freeman) return to his meadow home, only to find he must stop the auctioning of his possessions, as the town gave him up as lost forever. Having seen the world, Bilbo rests peacefully in his rocking chair, with a special memento from his journey, a memento which will be important later. Again, actors, scenery, costumes, story, and direction are entertaining. No, these fantasies are most likely not the "cup of tea" for all but don't miss out if you get the chance to view it.

Am I the only one who grew up with the Hobbit and LOTR, and loved the first films, but now hates the series with a passion? I mean, I can still watch these movies, but the sequel explosion is just getting ridiculous. I find myself numbed to the CGI panorama of wacky stuff going on. Every one of these movies now looks the same, and they have done so many creatures, battles, and scenes with CGI on a monster scale, with unrealistic physics, that I am no longer intrigued by them. It is like watching one long video game sequence, trying to outdo the last Transformers or latest Fast and Furious or Michael Bay disaster movie.The story-telling component and acting have been replaced by a homogenous visual tapestry of confusing(yet spectacular) effects. Don't get me wrong, Jackson makes great films, but this whole series is getting redundant, and every new release of the Hobbit movies looks and feels the same to me. It is like a fairy tale video world on acid, lacking in emotional or plot-driven depth or character development and real-world charisma. I find myself bored with this overdone pile of visual antics.Also, Sam and Frodo in the first 3 films were practically dying to french kiss or something. Are they secretly lovers? I liked the stories and read some of them as a kid, but the movies with Photo Saggins and Sam hamming it up really killed an otherwise great story, while we are on the subject of goofy LOTR junk. Overall, I like LOTR, but these sequels and prequels are getting as bad as Disney taking the helm for Star Wars and doing it to death.