A fantastic film that marks the end of Middle Earth in the right way

Rating: 9/10 (17 December 2014)

Now the original Lord of the Rings trilogy is easily one of my favourite trilogy's of all time and even though the Hobbit trilogy is a step down I have thoroughly enjoyed it and this film is a fantastic conclusion to Peter Jackson's Middle Earth films. The premise of this film sees the Five armies of Middle Earth amassing on Erebor for their own reasons that creates an epic middle earth war. Now Martin Freeman is once again fantastic as young Bilbo Baggins with his performance being really likable and the most relatable protagonist in these films and his character is so likable it is unreal. The supporting cast is all fantastic with Ian Mckellen reprising his role as Gandalf The Grey and once again he is awesome and such a wise character that I love seeing him in action in all these films. The performance of the film though is definitely Richard Armitage as Thoran and his character really has great character development and his character arc is probably the most interesting of any character in this film and helps drive this film to another level. Another superb performance was Luke Evans as Bard and he really steps up in this film and his character becomes more important even though I thought he was forgotten about towards the end. There are also some other great cameos from past characters such as Legolas, Elrond and especially Saruman. The story involving Thoran's transformation is really interesting and seeing the different races fight is interesting. However, I do think this film has a lot of action and a bit less story to it that didn't help in this film. I also thought this film could have taken some different directions with some of the characters that would have helped the overall feel of the film. The script is great with all the dialogue feeling real and the emotion helping make this film feel more epic then it would have been. The style is just like the other middle Earth films and is just epic with the great visuals and also the great scores for the film. Overall this is a fantastic send off for this franchise and I really think if you have seen the others then go see this film.