Epic and fitting grand finale to the second trilogy of the franchise of JRR Tolkien's grand tale of good vs. evil

Rating: 9/10 (29 December 2014)

THE HOBBIT : THE BATTLE OF THE FIVE ARMIES (2014) ***1/2 Ian McKellen, Martin Freeman, Richard Armitage, Orlando Bloom, Evangeline Lilly, Lee Pace, Cate Blanchett, Hugo Weaving, Christopher Lee, Ken Stott, Graham McTavish, William Kircher, James Nesbitt, Stephen Hunter, Dean O'Gorman, Aidan Turner, John Callen, Peter Hambleton, Jed Brophy, Mark Hadlow, Adam Brown, Luke Evans, Stephen Fry, Ryan Gage, John Bell, Manu Bennett, John Tui, Billy Connolly, Ian Holm, (Voice of : Benedict Cumberbatch). Epic and fitting grand finale to the second trilogy of the franchise of JRR Tolkien's grand tale of good vs. evil - picking up from the last film (literally) the dwarf band of brothers - and Bilbo Baggins (Freeman) - face off with the army of elves in combating the enormous army of evil - the dreaded, monstrous Orcs. Filmmaker Peter Jackson's Herculean efforts - two colossal trilogies - does everything anyone could hope for - give closure for an ongoing cataclysm of enormous entertainment with booming battles, inventive set pieces (dig the Orc one on one final acts of Bloom's Legolas and Armitage's Thorin) and truly jaw-dropping state-of-the-art CGI with Harryhausen echoes.