A disappointing conclusion

Rating: 2/10 (4 January 2015)

While I was very reluctant to hear the news that The Hobbit was being stretched into three films, I was fine with the direction of the first two and fairly confident that the final instalment would be a satisfactory ending to the trilogy. I was proved wrong.
Picking up from exactly where The Desolation of Smaug left off, Smaug is killed off in the first 15 minutes of the film which is disappointing considering how much the character/dragon was built up in the third act of the predecessor. With very little plot to go off (having to use such a small remain of the book), pretty much everything seems to go on for too long, especially the battle.
There seems to be no real justification for the extra plot lines explored in the first two films. What exactly was the point of Gandalf going to Dol Guldur other than to acknowledge that Sauron exists and to just draw that link back to the LOTR trilogy? What exactly happened to Elrond, Radagast, Galadriel and Saruman afterwards? They added nothing interesting to the story at all over these three films, their story arc has been a waste of time and covered what we already know (that Sauron is out there).
I was okay with Legolas' and Tauriel's appearance in the Desolation of Smaug (not originally appearing in the book) but even now, they too are characters that serve no purpose at all to the story and have just been shoehorned in for the purpose of adding unnecessary romance to the trilogy and to rake in some more cash by using Legolas to lure in big fans of the LOTR trilogy.
The only 'heart' that is actually present from this film is the interaction between Bilbo and the Dwarfs, Thorin in particular. Why wasn't this explored even more? I would have loved to have seen the dwarfs have a bigger role but a lot of them go unspoken and have very little to do.
Characters have very little room for development in this film, most of the focus is on the action and almost every bit of drama is forced, added for the sake of drama e.g., Bard saving his family from the troll, Kili trying to save Tauriel, Tauriel trying to save Kili, taking an entire Age to kill an Orc, all this just comes across as too cheesy, especially Thorin 'drowning' in gold and falling to his death before overcoming his 'dragon sickness', something that could have been handled with a lot more care and respect.
While there is a lot of action, it's never enticing and you can tell that the writers just thought of different ways of characters to pull off some crazy stunts that would look 'cool' on screen but ultimately have no effect whatsoever *cough* Legolas disobeying the laws of physics *cough* riding the bird thing. The stunts executed in the LOTR trilogy worked very well, especially as a lot of them were practical but the CGI and unbelievable situations these characters find themselves in (yes, it's a fantasy film but LOTR still had that little hint of realism) are just ridiculous.
The CGI seems very unfinished, especially Billy Connolly, who plays Thorin's cousin Dáin, who jitters through the world of Middle-Earth, appearing like a very video-gamey character and possibly something out of a Dreamworks movie.
Orcs aren't as terrifying as they were in the LOTR trilogy due to being completely CGI too. Speaking of Orcs, Azog too has had very little purpose in the trilogy. I was okay with him living in the film (when he is actually dead in the book) for him to have an ultimate showdown with Thorin, who I imagine would have been enraged at Azog for having killed his grandfather, but nope, they don't even talk about that, they fight for the sake of having some action in the film, resulting in a very anti-climatic duel between the two.
The only really light and interesting moments to ever occur on screen are those led by Martin Freeman with his performance as Bilbo, the only consistently good thing to come from these films (and the rest of the cast too but mainly Freeman as his character comes through as the most down-to-earth and not so serious). Had the filmmakers drawn their focus more towards 'the hobbit' and not characters who do not even need any screen time at all (Legolas, Tauriel, Saruman etc.) then this series would have turned out a lot better. Bilbo has slowly been swept aside with each sequel and mainly becomes a spectator to most of the events occurring around him. Why have a film about the titular character when you can have ridiculously long and ridiculous battle sequences instead?
"The Hobbit: The Battle of The Five Armies" is a very unsatisfying conclusion to Peter Jackson's stretched out and unjustified trilogy, leaving not so subtle nods to its 'follow-up' trilogy, presenting us with 'additional' information to the book that doesn't particularly tell us anything new and leaving some subplots unresolved. The action gets tiresome very quickly and the CGI is much too distracting. Whether you're a big fan of these movies on Middle Earth or not, this film may be nothing more to you than just your standard popcorn flick.