"True friends are hard to come by."

Rating: 9/10 (20 December 2014)

After having read a little about this final installment of The Hobbit Trilogy and knowing that some liberties were taken with the characters and story line, I was setting myself up for some disappointment. Perhaps because my last reading of the books is so far distant, the faithfulness to the original story issue didn't didn't bother me all that much. Beginning with the defeat of Smaug and on to the epic battle of Dol Guldur, the movie kept my attention and in a state of anticipation as to how Thorin (Richard Armitage) would free himself of the dragon madness. Thorin Oakenshield was clearly the preeminent adventurer here and Armitage did a masterful job of brooding his way through the sinister side of his character. It's rather astonishing that with the word 'Hobbit' in the title, Martin Freeman didn't have a larger role here as the master burglar Bilbo Baggins. All the supporting actors credited themselves well, with special mention of the one character who shouldn't have been here, but was. Though Tolkien purists will refuse to accept the elf warrior Tauriel as part of the story line, I thought Evangeline Lilly did a nice job bringing an ancillary character to the action, and if you never read the books, it's not really going to matter much any way. So for good or not, with the Hobbit Trilogy of movies now complete, I think the series of films will probably go on to be regarded with more favor as time goes by. What they hopefully accomplish at the very least is to intrigue enough viewers to seek out the books by Tolkien, who created a wondrous universe of characters complete with unique races, places and languages, enough to thrill readers of all ages.