The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies
Director: Peter Jackson
Year Released: 2014
Rating: 3.0
Last of the Hobbit trilogy begins with the dragon Smaug (voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch) finally being desolated (whew!) and the resulting factions getting into a giant battle over control of the treasures left in the mountain ... which gold-mad dwarf Thorin (Richard Armitage) covets. Half of the running time is devoted to the gargantuan title conflict (which involves several key players killed) and provides an ambitious and frantic conclusion to the series - while the CGI can get a little iffy at points, Jackson knows how to film combat scenes. Now that he's finished doing these six Tolkiens, is it too much to ask for him to go back to doing Bad Taste or Dead Alive or Meet the Feebles type movies?
