The latest and the last of the three part series of The Hobbit: The Battle Of The Five Armies, just out on rental. I was very disappointed in the first two, which were a real let down compared to the LOR series. This latest is a totally different animal. I’m not sure if directer Peter Jackson took some of the criticisms to heart from the last two movies and made it right, or he’d always planned the last one to make up for the first two, but it does. For lovers of the LOR series (and you’d have to screwed in the brain not to be a fan of those movies frankly…) this latest movie is much closer to them.
The first two Hobbit movies felt directed at kids, suffered CGI overkill, and just left most serous LOR fans flat. This latest movie is much more adult oriented, CGI used to enhance vs dominate as it did for LOR, solid acting, great battle scenes, and Action from start to finish. It does not have the “magic” of LOR, but it’s a solid A- movie that almost makes up for those last two duds.
//youtu.be/iVAgTiBrrDA
Honestly I didn’t make it 90 minutes into the first movie.
The first installment of a trilogy should not last longer than it would take for me to read the entire book. I will consider it, but the first one left such a bad impression it’s really hard to justify skipping over to watch the last.
WARNING - SPOILERS
I’m a huge LOTR fan, and the Hobbit films were disappointing to me. I saw part 1 of the Hobbit in the theater, skipped part 2, and recently saw part 3 on DVD. Part 3 was better than 1, but still had that awful sort of “Star Wars” episode 1-3 feeling. The innumerable dwarves were the equivalent of Jar-Jar Binks. Half the stuff in part 1 just seemed like they had to spend X dollars on CGI and that was the best they could come up with. I thought the final battle in part 3 went from interesting and engaging to “oh my, glad that’s over” in a flash of an eye. Shame the giant eagles didn’t just come in at the start and keep the good guys alive. Mostly glad I didn’t buy the Hobbit series on DVD or waste theater time on 2-3.
The third one is the only one worth watching, but I can’t say if it’s worth jumping to for you. If you enjoyed LOR, this movie is worth a view I thought.
If LOR I was a 9.5, II a 9.8 and III a 10, than this latest was a 7.2 
They definitely tried something “new” with the Hobbit films in comparison to the LOTR. Not sure why, I mean it’s part of the same damn series. It’s almost like they were paying homage to the cartoon version from the '70s, as everything had a more exaggerated over the top and light-hearted cartoonish feel. I do agree the third was definitely the best of the series.
More importantly at least I can now plan my LOTR marathon day and watch all six in a row and knock that off the bucket list. Just gotta find a day with about 21 hours to kill. 
I’m a fan of Tolkien’s work and love the original LOTR trilogy. But yeah, the Hobbit films lacked some magic ingredient that made the originals so unique and timeless. I tolerated the first two films, the third installment is worth repeat viewing.
I didn’t like it.
Although I agree, I didn’t like the first two way more.
My wife absolutely hated it.
At least it didn’t have as much of the over the top acrobatics and silliness the first 2 had.
I just don’t understand it. Peter Jackson was able to take a pretty obtuse and difficult series of books (LOTR) and fit them seamlessly into 3 movies and while not only making them interesting to the general public but also staying pretty true to the actual books (if you leave out Return of the King extended version).
But then he takes a book, that by itself is very nearly a screenplay, and stretches it into three extremely long, silly, over the top childish action flicks that have a made for Syfy Channel fantasy feel to them. I don’t understand it.
But honestly, the extended version of Return of the King has some of those elements in it and it is why I prefer the theatrical release to the extended version.
I don’t and won’t own any of the Hobbit series and won’t watch them again. I was EXTREMELY disappointed in the Smaug portrayal.
I honestly preferred the cartoon version of the Hobbit and especially Smaug. It was way more close to the book.
Spoiler Warning:
I almost turned it off when Bard the Bowman used a broken bow steadied on the shoulders of a kid to launch a SPEAR accurately. Really? That wasn’t an arrow. It was a freaking ballista bolt. :blink:
The cartoon version with him talking to the arrow as cooler and more dramatic and vastly more realistic. Plus Bard looked more like a hero-king and less like a pee soaked vagrant.
The Hobbit: Peter Jackson Says Give Me All Your Money
I’ll never understand taking a 300 page book and turning it into 3X 3hour movies…