Bilbo Baggins has always been something of an Everyman, both in the writings of creator J.R.R. Tolkien canon, I tried my best to keep track of all the characters, intricacies, symbols, nuances, layers and interconnections in Peter Jackson’s Tolkien films, but it wasn’t easy. In this image released by Warner Bros. Pictures, Martin Freeman appears in a scene from "The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies." The situation is complicated somewhat fiercely when the mountain-holding dwarves' leader, Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitage), is struck with a sort of gold fever and refuses to share any of the wealth with anyone, no matter how deserving. The story, such as it is: After Hobbit Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman) and his band of dwarves take back the treasure-filled mountain from the dragon Smaug, Smaug gets all fired up and lays waste to the nearby village (just reading that sentence is headache-inducing). With few exceptions, the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy has aged beautifully in the decade since the last film was released, and "The Hobbit" may do the same.  The best way I know to give “The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies” the heartfelt praise it deserves is to acknowledge that I’m anything but a scholar in this field. Still, it's no wonder that by journey's end our good Mr. Baggins looks as exhausted and glad for it to be over as we are.
– The last of the Hobbit films is now playing in theaters, bringing with it an end to Peter Jackson's long foray through JRR Tolkien's Middle-earth (at least for now). How does the finale of the second trilogy compare to its predecessors? Here's what critics are saying about The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies: "Entertaining? Absolutely," writes John Wenzel at the Denver Post. The film starts off with "one of the most tense and spectacular openings in action-film history." But soon, fans "may feel a bit lost," as if the movie was "somehow slapped together in a series of last-minute editing decisions." It's also clear that it's "far removed from its modest source material." It could be worse, though. Overall, "it still manages to work on a surprising number of levels." Peter Jackson continues to struggle with turning "one none-too-thick book ... into three overly long movies," writes Tom Long at the Detroit News. "The result is a great deal of noise serving as filler." Jackson "seems to have lost much of the visual imagination that kept his Lord of the Rings trilogy engaging." Long summarizes the flick like so: "Orcs screaming, elves looking shiny, dwarves wielding hammers, battle, battle." Joe Morgenstern, however, finds the film awe-inspiring. Sure, much of it "could qualify as an animated feature," he writes at the Wall Street Journal, but "the computer-generated effects here are executed so gorgeously ... and intertwined with such stirring live action, that the film as a whole is seamless, quite astonishing, and deeply satisfying." If you didn't watch first two movies, "the closing chapter isn't worth sitting through the 330 minutes' worth of movie that preceded it," writes Rene Rodriguez at the Miami Herald. Though in Rodriguez's view, the trilogy's final film is its best: It has an actual sense of "real life-and-death consequences," and the acting is even better. It's "fleet, rousing entertainment" with "CGI effects that raise the bar on the fantasy genre," he says. "Mr. Jackson, you proved your point by landing the finish. Now please, no more Middle-earth, ever."