The Hobbit: The Battle of The Five Armies

Diseases sometimes run in families; that may be the best way to think of the things that are wrong with this movie. As with its brethren films, this installment in the "trilogy-that-should-have-been-one-movie" suffers from the same frailties; however, here those problems are magnified due to the fact that they have festered all the way through two films already. The liberties with the story--both wild extrapolations from the original text and outright fundamental revisions to the story--are welcome least of all here at the story's climax and denouement. These deviations are all the more glaring in their lack of respect for the original material. Certain Elves don't belong in this story; a minor character is given way too much screen time; and the attempt at epic scope in the final battle just makes things confused and unclear. Ironically, a lust for dragon's gold--in this case, box office wealth--is what did in this project from the start. Let it be a lesson to future filmmakers.