Satisfying Action Packed Finish

Rating: 8/10 (17 December 2014)

I saw "The Hobbit:The Battle of the Five Armies", starring Martin Freeman-Fargo_tv, Hot Fuzz; Richard Armitage-Into the Storm, Captain America:The First Avenger; Evangeline Lilly-The Hurt Locker, Lost_tv, Luke Evans-Dracula Untold, Fast & Furious 6 and Ian McKellen-Magneto in the X-Men movies, Last Action Hero.
This is the third installment of the Hobbit series-or sixth, if you count the Lord of the Rings trilogy-that involves the legendary land called Middle-earth. It is directed by Peter Jackson, who directed all six movies. It is also the best of the Hobbit trilogy, in my opinion. This one starts right after the second one ends, where Smaug the dragon was attacking the town. After the situation is resolved, everyone heads for Smaug's fortress, where all the gold and treasures are just sitting there, waiting to be plundered. Luke-Bard leads the surviving townsfolk on the trek to the mountains but finds that Richard-Thorin and his fellow dwarfs have beat them to it and have barricaded themselves inside the fortress, and do not plan on giving it up. Martin-Bilbo is with Richard and the dwarfs and sees that Richard has been driven a little crazy with greed-he has even declared himself king of the dwarfs and has forgotten about almost everything else. Ian-Gandalf shows up to warn everybody of an invasion of Orcs, the big, ugly white creatures that like to ride big, scary looking wolf-like creatures. Evangeline- Tauriel and her fellow elves also arrive in time for the big, glorious battle, which lasts about 45 minutes. The battle is pretty brutal, with elves, dwarfs, Orcs and even regular old humans, all slugging it out over the great treasures that Smaug had collected. Even though I remember seeing lots of heads-and other body parts-being cut off during all the carnage, I don't remember seeing much blood-so it was not too gory for the younger viewers. It does end on a satisfying note. It's rated "PG-13" for intense violence and frightening images and has a running time of 2 hours & 24 minutes. I really enjoyed this one and would buy it on Blu-Ray.