The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

If The Hobbit doesn't equal the achievement of Jackson's earlier Middle-earth movies -- and, honestly, what could? -- it is still, in sum, a thrilling effort.

The performances have remained continuously excellent throughout The Hobbit trilogy, and they remain so here; likewise Howard Shore’s score, which is particularly righteous – bloodthirsty when it needs to be, keening when a particularly major character is cut down.

At 144 minutes, Five Armies is the shortest and the least bloated and discursive of the Hobbit films. It’s also the one that relies least on filler material and extra character business, and the one that most earns its moments of outsized, dire drama.

The finale is not an all-out disappointment. It should satisfy the franchise's fans, and it does wrap up any loose ends you might be wondering about.

Like Agatha Christie’s detective novels, there would appear little in the way of aesthetic – as opposed to technological – progression; having set the tone so definitively at the outset, each film delivered exactly what it promised.

Bilbo fades into the sidelines of his own movie, and that may be why the mournful finale of Battle feels so canned, like a roiling tide of crocodile tears. Eleven years ago, Jackson earned the fond, seemingly endless farewells of The Return Of The King. His Hobbit series has only one ending, and it comes not a moment too soon.

Jackson has marched the modern fantasy-action epic into a thundering blind alley; the movie exhausts your senses without ever engaging your imagination.

is this movie great or is this movie great im sorry to say it but the hobbit is better than the lord of the rings.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

- boring - the elves feel like superheroes - mediocre score - the plot is stretched just to fill the running time - feels rushed

This film ends "The Hobbit" trilogy, which is a prequel to "Lord of the Rings". Its not a trilogy that has reached to the third film in the best shape, since all the magic that LOTR had to spare is totally absent from the first two films. In this film, Thorin Oakenshield's company conquers the lonely mountain and the dragon is defeated, but the fate of the dwarven treasure is uncertain as it is disputed by many interested parties. I cannot comment on how Peter Jackson and his team adapt the original material of J.R.R. Tolkien because I never read it. As far as the actors' work is concerned, I think the film has sinned by scattering too much attention in a wide range of eminently secondary characters, stealing the scene from the main actors in the trilogy such as Richard Armitage (Thorin) or Martin Freeman (Bilbo). The latter was particularly affected: Bilbo was almost relegated to the supporting cast. Legolas (Orlando Bloom) and Tauriel (Evangeline Lilly), who are largely secondary characters, have more time on the screen than the little hobbit who tells us everything. This was very bad for the film and the trilogy, and unfair to the good work developed by Freeman. Despite this, most actors have risen to the challenge with solid, credible and consistent interpretations. The rhythm of the film seems strange: the first half-hour is an endless CGI action show, followed by an hour of slow battle preparations, where the audience almost falls asleep. Then, suddenly, we are again thrown into the middle of the action and the incessant CGI, which bombards us with sound and images to the point that everything seems pointless and meaningless. The incompetent and unfortunate cinematography we criticized in the early films continues to victimize key action sequences, just as brutal CGI abuse, who makes them increasingly unrealistic and boring. The soundtrack, by Howard Shore, is at the level of expectations, as in the whole trilogy. With "The Battle of the Five Armies" comes to an end one of the biggest disappointments I've had, as far as cinema is concerned. I confess that I expected much more from this trilogy. There was enough quality material for an trilogy equal (if not better) as "Lord of the Rings". The actors did their best, and I have no doubt they would have done better if they could. The script failed because it was too deconcentrated (mostly in this movie). The director, Peter Jackson, has failed and will surely join George Lucas in the list of absurdly addicted to redundant and meaningless special effects. It's a good thing that there will not be a fourth movie.Certain things have a time to end, and LOTR has has exceeded this time thanks to this unfortunate trilogy. So, let "Lord of The Rings" rest in peace.