Worth Seeing but Mediocre at Best

Rating: 4/10 (22 January 2015)

(SPOILER ALERT: I suggest that you don't read this review if you haven't seen the movie.) The Hobbit: the Battle of the Five Armies is a total let down. Yes, there are some great special effects, animation and sequences, especially the battle to free Gandalf, in which Galadriel, Elrond and Saruman, before he went to the dark side, fight Sauron—the villain. As great as this sequence is, however, it is misplaced in the movie. It should have taken place as part of the climax. This failure exemplifies the huge problem of the movie—misplaced sequences and scenes, causing a fragmentation of the film, not allowing the story to jell into a whole.
Also, the misplacement of this great fight sequence created another major problem. With Saruman out of the way, the primary antagonist—the character who was driving the plot and the conflict of the story— who are the heroes fighting against? The lizard dude, Azog? Huh? This doesn't cut it. All of the Lord of the Rings and the two other Hobbit films that precede this movie clearly establish that Saruman is the enemy that must be defeated. But now we have Lizard Dude. And Thorin, the dwarf king, is the one to defeat him. What? What happened to Bilbo? He's the main character but doesn't play a significant role in the climax of the film. Actually, there is no climax in the film, other than a big fight between Azog and Thorin, reminiscent of a saloon brawl in a poor Western. Why? Because Saruman was defeated early in the movie, which ended the story established by the five previous films.
The telltale sign that the movie is in trouble is the slaying of Smaug, the dragon, early in the film. This segment should have led to or been part of the climax. Perhaps, running parallel to the fight with Sauron. Nonetheless, the dragon is killed off very early in the movie—an action that made the rest of the film anticlimactic.
In addition, there is a critically important part of the story that is glossed over and forgotten: Saruman the White's betrayal. In the Lord of the Rings, we learn that he was once a strong ally of Middle Earth and defender of goodness. The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies clearly illustrates that Saruman, along with his allies, Galadriel and Elrond, fought the evil Sauron. So, how and why did he abandon his friends, his calling as a White Wizard, and join forces with his archenemy, Sauron? Peter Jackson simply didn't address this rich story element. As a result, we have an incredibly important story thread unresolved. Actually, the whole film is a collection of unresolved and misplaced story elements.
The spectacular animation, special effects and some magical sequences are not enough to make this movie a good one. It's mediocre at best—an example of how animation, special effects and $250 million dollars cannot and will never replace the great importance of a good screenplay. Also "fixing it in post" doesn't work at all. The old technology of the written word is and will always be the cornerstone of good storytelling.