Review: Peter Jackson's 'The Hobbit: Battle Of The Five Armies' With Martin Freeman, Benedict Cumberbatch, And More

As written by J.R.R. Tolkien, "The Hobbit" is a relatively slender fable for children (a 75th anniversary edition of the book runs a cool 320 pages). As adapted by co-screenwriter and director Peter Jackson, it is a lumbering, hugely expensive filmed trilogy, running nearly eight hours in total (and that's before you factor in the expanded home video editions). What was supposed to be two films blossomed into three, which means that the weight of financial expectation and the emotional investment of countless fans is placed squarely on this final film in the trilogy, "The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies," especially since it doesn't just wrap up the 'Hobbit' but the "Lord of the Rings" franchise as a whole. This seems like a damnably unachievable task, and in truth this chapter does fall short, but Jackson and his team cannot be faulted for not trying hard enough.

"The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies" starts exactly where the last...