Though far from perfect, Five Armies makes a fitting farewell to Middle Earth

Rating: 8/10 (22 December 2014)

More than a decade after his Lord of the Rings trilogy began, Peter Jackson now takes us to Middle Earth one last time for this, the final installment of the Hobbit. For some this will be a sad thought, marking the end of an era. For others less enamored with the recent films it will be cause for celebration. For me it brings a sense of satisfaction, for while they haven't been as good as I or others might have hoped, the Hobbit movies have been worthwhile entertainment, and this is the most entertaining of the three. Faster paced than Unexpected Journey and more serious than Desolation of Smaug, Battle of the Five armies comes the closest to the epic scale and excitement of the Lord of the Rings, even if it doesn't quite reach it.
After a fiery and suspenseful- if rather abrupt- opening, the film slowly builds over the next hour as tensions between men, dwarfs and elves grow to their breaking point and Thorin succumbs to the "dragon sickness" of greed. Though a tad slow and perhaps longer than strictly necessary, this section is buoyed by Richard Armitage's acting. Where he formerly gave off an aura of nobility, fearlessness, and unfailingly loyalty as Thorin, he is now cold, near paranoid, and constantly on the verge of exploding into rage as the lust for treasure drives everything else from his mind. His steady decline and ultimate moment of clarity are fascinating to watch, and the standoff his actions create sets the stage for what we really came to see: the titular battle.
Occupying fully half the run-time, the battle scenes are everything viewers could have hoped for. The Battle of the Five Armies presents a truly grand spectacle, with thousands of soldiers and towering beasts clashing across plains and through the ruins of Dale. The action is almost nonstop, alternating between sprawling shots of entire formations battling it out and the individual heroes' desperate combat against their more numerous foes. Thorin's duel with Azog is spectacular, and Legalos's fight scenes are equally breathtaking, though at a couple of points they did stretch believability. I also greatly enjoyed Gandalf and his allies' earlier showdown against the forces of the Necromancer, though for once I wish this part of the film had lasted a little longer.
The effects are generally on par with the action, the costumes and CGI producing monsters as convincing as they are gruesome. The set pieces are also impressively imposing, though there are a few scenes in which it's too readily apparent that the actors are in front of a green screen. While I'm on about thing's I didn't like I'll also say that the events of the first ten minutes would have fit better at the end of the last movie. On a more positive note the comic relief scenes were side splitting, especially the later ones with the cowardly Alfred whatever his name is.
Regarding this installment's faithfulness to the book, I must admit it's been a few years since I last read it, but I don't remember any trolls being mentioned, or fighting spilling into the city ruins, and I'm fairly certain there was a giant pack of wargs that are oddly absent here, and I'm entirely certain that Legalos and Azog weren't there. So yes, some rather significant liberties have been taken with the story, perhaps as many as in the last installment. That said, I've come to accept that Jackson's Hobbit trilogy is a very different experience from the source material, with its own strengths and weaknesses. One is a charming if occasionally frightening children's tale, while the other is a sprawling fantasy epic. Not all of the changes are entirely necessary or helpful, but purists will always have the old animated version.
Having seen all three films, I believe that the Hobbit would have been just as good as a single movie, and best as two. But even stretched out across three long installments and padded with many scenes of the director's own invention the trilogy works, both as prequel to Jackson's earlier trilogy and as epic fantasy entertainment of its own. This final installment admittedly doesn't match the awesomeness or majesty of Return of the King, but Battle of the Five Armies makes a suitably grand finale to the Hobbit trilogy and is one of the better films in a holiday season with many good options.