Smaug is loose and reigns his fire upon Lake-Town. Bard manages to kill the dragon with the Black Arrow. Thorin Oakenshield and the dwarfs reclaim the mountain and its treasures but the gold has driven Oakenshield mad. He is obsessed with finding the Arkenstone but Bilbo has already taken it. The elfs and the villagers descend on the mountain to claim their fair share but Thorin is mad with greed. All the while, the Orcs are secretly closing in on the argumentative bunch.

Over the years, I've come to the conclusion that these movie series need 'Previously On' segments. In this movie, the plot is pretty simple and recounting it is not an absolute necessity although a refresher would be helpful. What is truly needed is a section to rebuild the dramatic tension. The story just plop down right into a battle. It's an abrupt start and not in a good way. I also dislike the silly villainy of Alfrid Lickspittle. It's not particularly funny and rather insipid. Also the Orcs are nothing more than cannon fodder. It doesn't feel scary when they are mowed down Rambo style. Nevertheless, this is a fun adventurous ride. Tauriel continues to be a good addition providing the only feminine touch and some needed heart. Almost everybody has their fair shake. It's a machine that force out action and kills Orcs like an assembly line.

I really enjoyed the first two. I don't buy into the criticism that a 300 page book couldn't be made into a full blown trilogy. That said, I found the last episode way too full of battle scenes and gratuitous violence, big armies banging into each other, terrible orcs riding wolves, and the ultimate confrontation. In the process, all the charm that had been built up in the first two movies seemed to be dropped for a bunch of special effects. It starts well with the appearance of Smaug who fulfills his promise of destroying the town. But after that its a hodge-podge of romance and revenge and ultimately death. As this one ended, I literally felt, "Oh, is that the end?" Having read "The Hobbit" a couple of times, I knew what was going to happen, but it didn't quite work the way I thought it would. There was just something empty. Don't get me wrong, I could revel in the effort, but I can't say that this will stay with me for a long time.

Sure, The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies is not going to please die-hard fans of the book (as evident in the reviews here),mainly because of it being the case of three 2 1/2- 3 hour films based on a 300+ book, and it is not a patch on the brilliant Lord of the Rings trilogy. The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies has several major problems, mostly similar problems to the previous two films An Unexpected Journey and Desolation of Smaug but more serious for some, but it also like the previous two have a lot of good even great elements too. Judging the trilogy on its own terms without comparison, I still see as a majorly flawed but entertaining trilogy of films.

As said, The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies is a long way from flawless for similar reasons as before and they have been mentioned a number of times already. There is too much Alfrid and Tauriel and not enough Bilbo, rather criminal as he is the main character or is supposed to be. Unfortunately, neither Alfrid or Tauriel are particularly interesting. Especially Alfrid, who was incredibly obnoxious, not funny in the slightest and wasn't necessary to the story at all, for me his character is the worst thing about the entire trilogy. Tauriel is a little more tolerable, she is at least alluring and brings some heart in places, but like Desolation of Smaug but even worse the romance between her and Kili felt forced and shoe-horned in with some awkward writing. The script is also very messy and the most tonally imbalanced of all three films, there was a real sense one too many times that it didn't know what to do with itself.

There are some thoughtful parts but some parts were in need of more explanation, the romantic parts were sappily written and the corny humour returns and often is so juvenile particularly with Alfrid that it made the humour in An Unexpected Journey more sophisticated in comparison. It also doesn't do very well developing the characters, the only interesting characters were Thorin, Thranduil and to a lesser extent Bilbo. The dwarfs' roles are so insignificant here that you even forget who they are once the film's over, Beorn is wasted (again!),Azog didn't add a whole lot and still looks dodgy, Legolas does a lot of nice fighting skills and has a great scene with Thranduil but little else and the less said about Alfrid the better. The ending did feel abrupt and left more questions than answers. Despite the overlong and bloated consensus, actually if there was one film from the trilogy that could have benefited from being longer to tie up these loose ends it's this one.

However, like the previous two films The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies looks great. It's well shot, maintaining the softer but darker story-book look of Desolation of Smaug, the scenery and sets as always look amazing, the special effects while overused in places have an awe-inspiring effect (Smaug still looks magnificent, best designed dragon on film since Dragonslayer in my opinion) and the make-up is good. Howard Shore's music for Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit has never been less than good, the Lord of the Rings's music actually is incredible and one of the best film scores in recent years, and The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies is no exception. It isn't perfect, it's too bombastic at times in places that needed the opposite approach and one does miss the Misty Mountains theme from An Unexpected Journey, but it's still very ethereal and haunting. Billy Boyd's The Last Goodbye finishes the film beautifully and provides a strong emotional core.

Peter Jackson's direction is decent but has been much better before, story direction wasn't a strong suit here and some scenes could have benefited from a less is more approach but he still shows mastery of visual style and detail and that he can create mood well. Story-wise The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies is the least involving, largely because most of the story of the book was covered in the previous two films. But it does move fairly briskly and has several fine moments(if not as much as the scenes with Bilbo and Gollum and Bilbo and Smaug previously),such as Dol Guldur, the scene between Legolas and Thranduil, the thrilling last battle, Galadriel vs. Sauron the fight on top of the frozen waterfall but especially great were the whole brilliantly played dynamic between Bilbo and Thorin, the excitingly tense Laketown sequence and the emotionally beautiful and clever ending scene.

Other than the look of the film, the best thing about The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies is the acting, which is the area where it is difficult to find fault. Martin Freeman's Bilbo is heartfelt, filled with curmudgeonly charm and grabs your attention every minute he's on screen while Richard Armitage plays Thorin's descending madness and angst with brooding intensity and raw emotion. Lee Pace elevates his material to a higher level and fleshes out Thranduil's moral ambiguity in a way that makes him one of the more memorable supporting actors, Ian McKellen is also perfectly cast as Gandalf and Benedict Cumberbatch is splendidly sinister as the Necromancer and especially Smaug. Christopher Lee, Hugo Weaving and Cate Blanchett are great value, Ian Holm makes a lovely appearance, Luke Evans is great and charismatic as Bard and Orlando Bloom and Evangeline Lilly do play reliably though their characters could have been written better. Billy Connolly is a pleasant surprise and is entertaining and Sylvester McCoy isn't a liability either.

On the whole, possibly the weakest of the three(but the three Hobbit films are very close together in rating) but, while with a lot wrong, enjoyable. 7/10 Bethany Cox