The Hobbit trilogy ends with bloodshed and tears, but is it any good?
Peter Jackson’s ‘Hobbit’ trilogy comes to an end and we bid farewell to Middle-earth after 14 years. But can ‘The Battle of the Five Armies’ stand up against ‘The Return of the King’?
There is probably just as much folly in trying to review The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies as there was in making three movies out of a very slim volume of a book. If you’re a fan of the films, you’ll see it no matter what some critic says, and if you’re not a fan there’s nothing I or anyone else could say to convince you to see it (and who would go see the third part of a trilogy without seeing the first two parts anyway?).
The plot, in a nutshell, picks up exactly where we left off in The Desolation of Smaug. The fearsome dragon is launching an all-out attack on Laketown, Gandalf is still imprisoned somewhere, and Thorin and his compatriots are hoping to reclaim their land, their home, their birthright once Smaug is dispatched. Once that happens, everyone in Middle-earth shows up to claim the land (and the treasure) for themselves. There’s bloodshed, there is death, there are tears, but in the end can this trilogy stand up next to The Lord of the Rings? In a word, no. Think Star Wars Episodes I-III compared to Episodes IV-VI (but maybe not quite that bad).
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