The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies is the last installment in The Hobbit trilogy. It starts off where the last “film” left off, Bilbo witnesses Smaug incinerating Laketown while Thorin and his band of dwarves watch from the Lonely Mountain. Stuff happens and armies are amassed to take the treasures from Erebor. Friendships are tested, strengths are tested, skills are tested, computer capacity to render is tested and my interested is tested.

The good; the actors do a great job, Martin Freeman as Bilbo is wonderful, he brings a great humanity to the role. Ian McKellen as Gandalf is perfect, I can’t imagine anyone else for this role.

This film actually has stakes, Thorin’s obsession for the Arkenstone is both believe-able and tragically relate-able. The threat of life ending situations is actually realized in this final film, that’s what was missing from the previous installments.

The bad; the movie is basically battle porn. It’s scene upon scene of armies battling. It’s like a Michael Bay film (not a good thing) set in a fantasy realm. In the first five minutes of the film we get a climactic scene worthy of the third act… where do we go from here? Well, if it was like The Empire Strikes Back we’d focus on the inner character struggles and build up to a third act climax that deals with an emotional show down. Sadly in The Battle of the Five Armies the character stuff gets pushed aside with all the battle scenes upon battle scenes.

No more songs in this movie?? Ahem, lost opportunity.

Overall, catch it on tv or rent it to close the trilogy out.

Also, no talking during the movie.