An epic end to an epic story.

Rating: 7/10 (9 December 2014)

"The Battle of Five Armies" begins with the dragon Smaug (Benedict Cumberbatch) flying through the sky towards Lake-Town bellowing fire in his belly and setting the town alight without sympathy. Smaug's malevolence comes from his isolation and ability to hoard what he doesn't need. So when the dragon is defeated by the astute archer Bard (Luke Evans) his evil doesn't dissipate with him. Thorin (Richard Armitage) claims stake to his treasure and the greed grows steadily within him. This is the first sign as to the evil behind accumulation and the unwillingness to share. But Thorin will be the first to evoke aggression for the possession of all the gold.
The people from Lake-Town now make their way to the supposed safety and shelter of the abandoned town on the Lonely Mountain.
The Dwarfs barricade the entrance to the treasure on Thorin's command while the Wood-elves and Lake-men besiege the mountain and request compensation for their aid. Thorin denies the Elves, and Men, what he had originally promised them.
Tension escalates as Orcs and Goblins advance on the mountain. Soon a Dwarf army arrives to defend Thorin from the advancements of Elves not knowing of the Orcs and Goblins. But their fight for wealth is stifled when the real enemy descends on the Lonely Mountain, attacking the women and children seeking shelter in the abandoned town and the armies of the Elves, Dwarfs and Man.
The battle is a forty-five minute barrage of destruction and death. Epic to say the least as the fighting's relentless and aggressive across the entire lonely mountain.
The Hobbit Trilogy is a very welcome film epic but in terms of story the two most memorable parts of The Hobbit are in fact the dragon Smaug and the dark, wet cave where Bilbo finds the ring. With the ring being found and the dragon out of action the last two hours of "The Battle of the Five Armies" is more than a little dragged out. In the same fashion as how the introduction to each Dwarf in the beginning of "An Unexpected Journey" is dragged out –there's only two fleshed out Dwarf stories, Thorin and Kili. But this is to be expected when one tries to turn one story into three.
Nonetheless "Battle of the Five Armies" is a great action/adventure to end the year off. A great way to end one of the most amazing stories ever told. It may be a book that teenagers read but this Peter Jackson Trilogy has turned the written word into something more visceral than my teenage brain could fathom.
"Battle of the Five Armies" can sit up there (just under) with the other big-budget, high effect driven films of 2014 like "X-Men: Days of Future Past", ""Guardians of the Galaxy" and "Edge of Tomorrow" while it slaughters the likes of "Godzilla", "Transformers" and "The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles".