The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies iss the weakest of the Hobbit movies thus far.

That's not too much of a bad thing as the others were 5 star epics which built on the legacy Peter Jackson created with the Lord of the Rings but this just falls a little short.

A large part of this is down to the lack of source material for this movie (Tolkien's one line on the battle not quite sufficient enough for a two and a half hour film) and this is noticeable compared with the journeys and events undertaken in parts one and two.

The majority of this film lies in the titular battle (between four armies rather than five, bizarrely, unless we're counting the two different sets of orcs) which should be awe-inspiringly awesome but suffers slightly from a lack of massive set pieces like the Rings films.

Sounds strange to say but much of the fighting is unmemorable and on a much smaller scale to Rings; armies are tiny and scraps are limited to close up shots between unintroduced characters.

The incredible, fifteen minute opening with its dispatch of Smaug, fan pleasing battle between Galadriel and Sauron and the thoroughly satisfying, and not dragged out, ending (finally!) redeem it though and are easily the best bits here and it's nice to get a cameo from everyone in the series (and a nice mention of Aragorn.)

A good ending if not quite on a par with what came before.

4 stars ****