A good, though loosely adapted, movie

Rating: 7/10 (18 December 2014)

"The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies" gets seven out of ten stars from me. A good film, although a few of the scenes early on seemed a little thrown together. For instance, in the scene of the people of Lake-Town gathering after the death of Smaug, a lot of information is thrown in by an unnamed character and just rushed over in order to move the story along. There is a totally unnecessary scene near the end of the film between Legolas and his father to make an obvious tie-in to the Lord of the Rings. Since the end of the movie ties it in perfectly, why the one between the two elves had to be there I just don't get. And, the entire film could have just written out the Alfrid character and I wouldn't have cared at all. I know his cowardice was supposed to be comical relief, but he ended up just being annoying.
But, other than that, the battle scenes lived up to the hype and the death of Smaug at the beginning is done very well with his face the main focus and the fire "going out." I will definitely be seeing this again while it is in theaters.