Movie Review – The Hobbit: The Battle Of The Five Armies

By Liam Freeman

The epic conclusion of Peter Jackson’s Hobbit trilogy is finally here, and thankfully The Battle of The Five Armies does not leave us unimpressed. The dwarves of Erebor including Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitage) and the rest of his company are back, continuing their quest to recover their lost home under the Lonely Mountain. With the help of Gandalf, (Sir Ian Mckellen) Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman) and many more along their journey, they have finally reached their goal, but not all is as it seems.

With a dragon loose, a town in peril and threats left right and centre there was sure to be enough drama and action to finish off the trilogy and with a name like “Battle of The Five Armies” you know something big is going to go down. With battles on an epic scale, a brilliant story and an ending befit for a king you’d better prepare yourself for a great ending to the trilogy.

Elves, dwarves, men, orcs, wizards, necromancers, and the undead all line up to take part in the final film and none fall short, even Elrond (Hugo Weaving) and Saruman (Christopher Lee) get in on the action. With the dwarves managing to drive the dragon out of Erebor, the treasures that lie below are enough for everyone to share but it seems sharing isn’t what Thorin wants. Greed, jealousy and hate begin to drive the dwarf king into a spiral of paranoia and fear leading to the betrayal of his word to the people of Lakeside and a great twist to the character that holds his head up high with honour.

When news travels that Erebor has been retaken, various factions from across the land begin to emerge to take the ancient dwarven stronghold but the sons of Durin will not abandon their home so easily. With each and every group from the Hobbit films appearing to make a move it is a bloody and gritty ending to what had been  a charmingly small previous two films in retrospect.

Sadly enough the character of Smaug (Benedict Cumberbatch) doesn’t actually play too big of a part in the conclusive film, while the addition of comedy also seems like a poor choice in general as some of the scenes really don’t need to be funny. Scenes with characters such as Alfrid (Ryan Gage) seemed out of place and continued to be an awkward addition to the story.

Overall the film is definitely worth seeing on the big screen -  it’s not without flaws but it’s more like The Lord Of The Rings classics than any of the previous Hobbit films and it really needed it. The Battle of The Five Armies just hits the nail on the head and brings a satisfying conclusion to a story that deserves it.