“The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies,” directed by Peter Jackson, is the final chapter of the epic Hobbit trilogy.

These movies depict Bilbo’s story through the eyes of the director with lots of scenes and characters added. This makes sense as the novel itself is only 300 pages long and was fitting into three movies. Another reason for this extended length was to have “The Hobbit” movies lead into the events of “The Lord of the Rings.”

You will need to have seen the two previous “Hobbit” movies for “The Battle of Five Armies” to make sense.

“The Battle of the Five Armies” picks up right from the end of “Desolation of Smaug.” Jackson’s directing style is not very flashy, but he does a good job in getting the intensity across to the audience. He is really good at making you care about the characters and what happens to them.

The characters were excellently cast and the actors did a brilliant job playing their roles. Almost all of the characters played significant roles in this movie, from minor characters coming in to save the day to main characters dying.

The only thing taking away from this movie were unrealistic fight scenes, and physics used — although lots was due to its PG-13 rating and lack of blood.

Nobody under 13 should be allowed to see this movie because there are violent portions of the movie. The gore isn’t overwhelming, but the sheer violence may scar children.

Overall we would give this movie a four out of five stars. The scenes were cinematically brilliant, characters were well developed, and the film was filled with action from start to finish.

–Dec. 17, 2014–