The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

Its time for the third instalment of Martin Freemans hairy toes. This time Benedict Cumberbatch is really pissed off and decides to burn a town by the lake. Once the burning is done the lake people move into some buildings just outside Richard Armitages mountain castle thing. The guy from pushing daisies gets wind of all this and turns up to take some jewels from Richard. Richard is a bit of a greedy dick and says no to everybody causing the lake people, pushing daisies guy, some orcs, Billy Connolly and a 5th army to have a big ol' to do.

Right so finally seen all three Hobbit films and can comment on them as a trilogy. I'll start with this as a standalone film and I can say from the off that I loved it. It starts at the moment the last film finishes and is a spectacular opening set piece with Smaug decimating the people of Laketown. As in the second one Smaug is beautifully animated and looks as real as a giant talking dragon could. The tempo relaxes slightly following this scene but not much with the vast majority of the film occurring in the mountain hold of the dwarves. While the first two films focussed on Bilbo this one is very much Richard Armitages film. He pulls off a cracking performance as the internally tormented king of the dwarves. Martin Freeman once again shows us he was made for this role and the supporting cast are spot on. The film is not unfortunately without flaws with it feeling ever so slightly strung out, much like the first one did, however I will admit this is me nitpicking. Viewing the Hobbit as a trilogy I have to admit it is a triumph and makes me want to pick up a sword and swing it into some pesky orcs face whilst a dragon flies overhead burning all it sees. Overall they are not as good as the Lord of the Rings trilogy but frankly in this genre nothing is.

Verdict: 5/5