A forgettable way to cap off an inconsequential trilogy.

Rating: 5/10 (23 January 2015)

So after the first Hobbit film underwhelmed and the second film bitterly disappointed, any hope for this series to have even a moment hit the bar set by The Lord of the Rings trilogy has utterly deflated. The Battle of the Five Armies is a disheartening pale shadow of what Middle Earth once was. It's more or less an extended epilogue of The Desolation of Smaug, a film that looks much worse yet way more eventful in hindsight. There's no improvement in aesthetic, narrative or character investment. Bilbo gets a single moment to revel in rather than each scene. Battles are tedious, pointless and unremarkable. Richard Armitage has never been worse and the Unibrow guy is especially abysmal. To its credit, compared to the other two this film holds a somber mood of denouement, one that The Return of the King has as well, but here it's more of a relief. An unmemorable way to cap off a forgettable franchise.
5/10