Great Start...OK Finish

Rating: 7/10 (11 August 2015)

The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies offers one of the most exciting beginnings in a film I've seen in a while. With the ending of the second film I was excited to see what more the dragon Smaug, was going to do. And for the first 10 minutes of the film I was on the edge of my seat and shoving popcorn in my face. I was having a blast, the dragon was doing really cool and evil things that made up for the boring first film. I was relieved that finally there is some real excitement and fun. However, that was short lived as something happened that made me very upset and ruined everything for me. The dragon gets killed in the stupidest and lamest way possible by being speared by the Black Arrow. I was so upset that they killed the coolest character in the entire franchise in the worst way possible. And this character had a lot of build up making me pumped to see him. But what a horrible way to kill such a great character. So, after Smaug is killed the film carries on and its only 10 minutes into the movie and I went from really excited to being upset, with that it just brought the movie way down for me. The film just fell flat. The battles weren't very gratifying, except for the first one with Smaug, but thats it. I think they should have kept Smaug in the film longer, because we just didn't get to experience him enough. If you think about it he was only in the franchise for 30 minutes before he is killed. We see him at the end of the second film for about 20 minutes, then in this one he is seen for 10 minutes before he gets killed. As a whole this film was a disappointment, and there isn't much else to say about it other then what I said, which is the main attraction to this franchise in the first place. Smaug is the only reason I wanted to see this film, and he himself didn't disappoint, but the way he was handled not so much. Now to grade it. Story: C+ Characters: B- Visual Effects: B+ Acting: B Fights/Battles: B- Smaug's Death: F Smaug: A Overall: C+