The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (12A)

Director: Peter Jackson

Starring: Martin Freeman, Richard Armitage, Ian McKellen

IF the first Hobbit film is a whimsical homage to The Shire and the second is about a band of brothers claiming back what is rightfully theirs.

Then the final instalment of the Middle-earth trilogy is a cautionary tale about the risks of actually getting what you want.

The Battle of the Five Armies picks up the story immediately where The Desolation of Smaug left off.

Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitage) and his band of dwarves have reclaimed their ancestral home under the Lonely Mountain with the help of Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman) but can only watch as dragon Smaug awakens to wreak havoc on Laketown.

But from the relative safety of the mountain fortress, Thorin is seduced by the vast riches of his new kingdom and is driven mad with 'dragon sickness' in search for a great jewel called the Arkenstone.

And that becomes the focus of the closing chapter of director Peter Jackson's Hobbit films with the consequences of Thorin's failed pledges and the 'evil' of gold preached throughout.

The Hobbit may have been written by J. R. R. Tolkien in 1937 but the parallels with the real world of today ring true.

Despite the deep fantasy world it is set in, the film leaves a lingering reminder of the economic crisis and the way money can create a deep divide between people.

This of course – as all Middle-earth films do – leads to epic battle and that is where Jackson comes into his own with stunning sequences of close-up clashes and sweeping scenes of the chaos from afar.

Armies of Elves and humans march to the Lonely Mountain for their fair share of the dwarf kingdom's riches.

Meanwhile, Thorin's cousin Dain (Billy Connolly on brilliant form) leads a company of dwarves to defend the fortress.

And news must travel fast in Middle-earth as the savage orcs are also aware of Smaug's departure from the mountain and are coming to pillage.

So when Thorin comes to his senses, the dwarves, elves and humans form an uneasy alliance to hold back their shared foe.

But what may disappoint some viewers, who are unfamiliar with Tolkien's book, is that Smaug has such a small part in the final film.

The dragon, voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch, was marketed as the big nemesis of the trilogy but his role here is minute.

Jackson also seems to have been conscious that The Hobbit was originally written as a children's story.

But the filmmaker's attempts to find the right tone do not quite work with scenes shifting clumsily from action to slapstick (exclusively at the expense of Ryan Gage's conniving civil servant Alfrid).

Meanwhile, the gloriously over-the-top action sequences are consistently entertaining but some are just too cheesy – Legolas beating gravity, Bard using his son's shoulder to steady the ridiculously big 'black arrow'.

There is also a debate to be had in the years to come about whether three films were necessary for this adaptation and you do begin to wonder when most of the final film is simply a battle with little of the promised final links to Lord of the Rings.

Jackson has outdone himself in terms of introducing new weird and wonderful orc monstrosities to keep the fight scenes fresh but you get the sense that The Hobbit, as a whole, would have benefitted from a more refined vision.

DAVID MORGAN