Bittersweet farewell to Middle-earth

Rating: 8/10 (17 December 2014)

And with "The Battle for the Five Armies" my yearly trip to Middle-earth is once again overand it was a bittersweet farewell.
I absolutely loved the last two films and, I'll be honest, this one is my least favorite of the trilogyof course, that isn't me saying I didn't like it or thought it was bad. The only problem I had with the film was there was some computer effects that I just couldn't look past this time and the actual battle between the armies had no real emotional value in it and wasn't as exciting as the stuff we've seen in LOTR. Despite that, the cast is still really great and they are really getting their characters right, I still like this adaptation of the story, and the final fight that sees Thorin taking on Azog was very exciting and entertaining. Finally, the film did do a great job of ending Bilbo's adventure and really made it a sweet but kinda sad goodbye to his life as an adventurer.
"The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies" may not have been perfect and epically entertaining for me like the last two—and its considerably shorter running time provides the argument that, with some edits, this trilogy could have easily been made into two films—but I still had a great time returning to Middle-earth for one last adventure.