The conclusion to the sequel trilogy...

Rating: 8/10 (16 May 2016)

As an avid fan of the fantasy genre and having playing Dungeons & Dragons for about 30 years, I oddly enough never really took Tolkien that close to heart. Perhaps because I never read the books, and only have seen the movies by Peter Jackson. But still, I have seen all of his films set in the world of Middle-Earth. And yes, I have been adequately entertained by the movies and their glorious special effects galore.
However, I will say that "The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies" is somewhat of a mixed roller-coaster. There are some really nice aspects to the movie, but there are also so very disappointing aspects. First of all, I was more than thrilled about the amount of action in the movie; lots of really spectacular fight scenes and impressive choreography. And the whole thing to have that special unique touch to it, which makes it very life-like and vibrant. There is a lot of nice touches and details to the characters, costume designs and set designs. But then on the other hand, then there are some really bad things in the movie as well. Here, I am of course referring to how anti-climatic the scene with Smaug was. And the scene where Legolas was running and jumping off of Falling debris on the bridge, then I was just about good and ready to get up and turn off the travesty that I was witnessing on the screen. And it was also painfully bad to witness how the main villain came back through the ice, once he was bested. It was just such a bad cliché and so predictable it hurt to witness.
The acting in "The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies" was actually quite good, as it had been throughout the previous movies as well. And a lot of credit for this goes to Martin Freeman (playing Bilbo), Ian McKellen (playing Gandalf) and Richard Armitage (playing Thorin).
The character design in the movie was good, and there was a good amount of character Development and growth, which made it all the more better to watch. If the movie had been without this, it would have been nothing more than an impressive CGI display.
Personally I found it a bitter pill to swallow with the elves in the movie, as they were basically just a bunch of stuck up prudes who believed themselves better than everyone else. It was difficult to take them serious, because they came off as being kids trapped in grown-up bodies.
So was "The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies" a worthy conclusion to the sequel trilogy? I believe so. But bear in mind, of course, that I haven't read Tolkien's books, so I have nothing to compare it with.