Disappointing in view of Jackson's triumphant LOTR film trilogy

Rating: 6/10 (6 July 2015)

This review contains significant SPOILERS:
I finally saw the final installment of Jackson's take on Tolkien's children's book, "The Hobbit." While Jackson's beautiful LOTR film trilogy was a work of art on its own terms, bringing what was thought to be an impossible-to-film work to memorable life, "The Hobbit" trilogy seems curiously lifeless and half-hearted.
Tolkien's original work is a bit long for a children's book, and there are sections that I personally find tedious. But, the book comes to life when Bilbo finds the Ring, and begins to discover the hero within him (or the Took within the Baggins, as Tolkien would have it).
That leads to, what is, for me, the best chapter in the book, "Spiders and Flies." I literally want to stand up and cheer as Bilbo attacks the giant spiders, and rescues his dwarfish friends. This sequence, which I thought was the best section of the book, was given such short shrift the second installment of the Hobbit trilogy that it was practically non-existent.
And, as others have suggested, this is the basic flaw in Jackson's Hobbit films. Bilbo Baggins is reduced to practically a minor character in the story that bears his name. As Bilbo, Martin Freeman, a likable, if not compelling, actor, spends most of his screen time looking vaguely befuddled. In "The Battle of the Five Armies," the main characters appear to be Bard, then Thorin, then, Gandalf, and then, maybe, Bilbo.
And what is Orlando Bloom, as Legolas, doing in this film? Not only was he not in the original story, but Bloom has, if you will pardon the exact pun, lost his bloom. While he is as handsome as ever, he looks 12 years older than he did in "The Return of the King," and seems completely out-of-place in the film. Evangeline Lilly makes a great elf, and is a pleasure to look at, and I had no particular objections to the character of Tauriel, except that she wasn't in the book, and that Tolkien would probably rotate in his grave at the idea of a romance between an elf and a dwarf.
Without going into the multiple problems in the first 2 "Hobbit" films, my main complaint about the trilogy finale, is, that when a movie is called the "Battle of the Five Armies" we should see the good guys win the climactic battle.
Instead, Jackson and his co-writers chose to shift the story's focus to the deaths of Fili, Kili, and Thorin Oakenshield. This could have been wonderful as a means of showing the human (or dwarfish) cost of the war, but instead Jackson and company appear to have entirely forgotten to end the battle, except for the suspense-free announcement "The eagles are coming." The death of Thorin should have been moving, but coming at the hands of such a lifeless and unconvincing CGI villain, simply seemed to me like an inferior replay of the death of Boromir, in LOTR.
And, following the unsatisfying climax, "The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies" appears to trail off rather than having a proper denouement. Since the original subtitle of the book was "There and Back Again" we should have had some sense of closure at the end, and should leave Bilbo in peace to write about his adventures. Instead, we leave him on a sour note as the Ring is already beginning to tempt him and warp his winsome personality. I can't help but think that Bilbo Baggins deserves better.