A satisfactory conclusion to the series. 72.5%

Rating: 7/10 (11 January 2015)

I'll just provide a brief impression of this movie, as it's the 3rd of 3, so if you've made it to this movie, you'll be familiar with the story so far.
After a poor first movie, the second movie was quite good and where you'd expect a movie of this budget and background to be. The finale falls somewhere between the quality of the first two. I was considering giving this movie a simple "Pass" score (as opposed to "Fail"), but it's a bit better than that and my score of 72.5% is there or there abouts.
One thing that is interesting about this series is that the first movie seems made for children but by the time of the final movie it is more adult in tone and themes. That would work for a young audience viewing these films as new releases but not so much if a young child was to view all three films in quick succession on disc or online. From memory, this final film has a shot of someone being beheaded.
Positives about this film include:
* Ryan Gage's performance as Alfrid. Gage is quite funny at times in this role. He puts into mind the very first series of Blackadder...he reminds me of that sitcom's titular character there...but funnier.
* Moments of poignancy regarding characters and relationships.
* Some of the large-scale battle scenes were well done. Some movies can't get this right, e.g. George Lucas' Star Wars movie "Attack of the clones". Director Peter Jackson did a magnificent job in this regard in the best movie of the "Lord of the rings" trilogy, I think, in "The two towers". This isn't up to that standard, but it's good, nonetheless...has a touch of Saturday matineee swashbuckling to it, amidst the more sombre fighting scenes.
Not exactly a negative, but when you first hear the voice of Dain, you immediately know who is playing him (perhaps...not all people would be familiar with him though). It makes you wonder if Tolkien's world had that actor in it!
By the by:
Watching the end credits, the sheer number of people is staggering, especially with specific crew titles. In one category I counted over 50 crew and in another category I couldn't keep up after I counted over 80 crew members in a particular category...there would have been around 90 or so there, I imagine.
Lastly, I'll just say that the final film in this series does make it worth watching the series. That's a pointed comment to series like The Matrix, which starts off magnificently and goes nowhere fast from then on. "The Hobbit" series started off as "The Matrix" series finished but quickly established a reasonably good outcome.