The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies
Warner Bros. Pictures | Release Date: December 17, 2014 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
59
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 46 Critic Reviews
Positive:
23
Mixed:
22
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
60
Los Angeles TimesBetsy SharkeyDec 16, 2014
The finale is not an all-out disappointment. It should satisfy the franchise's fans, and it does wrap up any loose ends you might be wondering about. Read full review
60
SalonAndrew O'HehirDec 16, 2014
If I had the power to turn back time and start the tortuous production process that led to the “Hobbit” trilogy over again, with a different director in charge and a completely different approach, I would do it. But that’s precisely the problem with the One Ring, right? Once you put it on you are changed, and those changes cannot be undone. Read full review
60
Arizona RepublicKerry LengelDec 16, 2014
Even though Five Armies is the shortest Hobbit movie, it also is the least thrilling as it chugs toward the finish line weighted down with all the added characters and confusing subplots that have been tacked on along the way. Read full review
60
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike ScottDec 16, 2014
That's a lot of storytelling going on, and it costs Battle of the Five Armies a certain cohesion. Read full review
60
Village VoiceAlan ScherstuhlDec 2, 2014
The longer versions of all Jackson's Middle-earth films have played better (and made more sense) than their theatrical cuts, but this time he's trimmed out something absolutely vital, the one element that, besides his mad gore-minded grandiloquence, has kept everything together five films running: an attention to the emotional lives of his hobbits. Read full review
60
CineVueJoe WalshDec 1, 2014
Jackson's efforts have peaked and troughed, but this final chapter will undoubtedly satisfy fans, and kindle a sense of sadness as this hobbit's tale finally draws to a close. Read full review
60
Time Out LondonTom HuddlestonDec 1, 2014
Luckily, Jackson’s singular talent for massive-scale mayhem hasn’t deserted him, and the hour-long smackdown that crowns the film gives him ample opportunities to indulge it. Read full review
60
The GuardianAndrew PulverDec 1, 2014
Like Agatha Christie’s detective novels, there would appear little in the way of aesthetic – as opposed to technological – progression; having set the tone so definitively at the outset, each film delivered exactly what it promised. Read full review
50
Rolling StonePeter TraversDec 17, 2014
Talk about beating a dead orc. In dutifully completing his prequel trilogy to his three-part Lord of the Rings triumph, director Peter Jackson has sadly saved the worst for last. Read full review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)John SemleyDec 17, 2014
Five Armies only feels truly entertaining when it embraces the arch silliness of its material; like when 92-year-old actor Christopher Lee whirls about in combat with a handful of ghosts. Read full review
50
Philadelphia InquirerSteven ReaDec 17, 2014
If you want to see a Renaissance faire turned into an apocalyptic battlefield, this is the ticket. Read full review
50
The New York TimesNicolas RapoldDec 16, 2014
Bilbo may fully learn a sense of friendship and duty, and have quite a story to tell, but somewhere along the way, Mr. Jackson loses much of the magic. Read full review
50
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsDec 16, 2014
By the second hour of The Battle of the Five Armies, the visual approach becomes a paradox: monotonously dynamic epic storytelling. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleDec 16, 2014
As Bilbo, Freeman is a pleasure to watch to the extent we get to watch him. His timing is brilliant — he gets the movie’s only laughs. He has tremendous sensitivity and an ability to seem like he’s about to say something — and then convey it without saying it. He could have made a great Bilbo. Instead he’s the one thing that has made this trilogy bearable. Read full review
50
St. Louis Post-DispatchJoe WilliamsDec 16, 2014
Whose story is this? There’s an old saying that history is written by the winners. The screenplay for The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies must have been written by elves. Read full review
50
The A.V. ClubA.A. Dowd Dec 16, 2014
Bilbo fades into the sidelines of his own movie, and that may be why the mournful finale of Battle feels so canned, like a roiling tide of crocodile tears. Eleven years ago, Jackson earned the fond, seemingly endless farewells of The Return Of The King. His Hobbit series has only one ending, and it comes not a moment too soon. Read full review
42
Tampa Bay TimesColette BancroftDec 16, 2014
Turns out we were right to wonder. The first film based on The Hobbit was charming fun, the second pretty good, too. But The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies is a film too far, tedious and overlong and short on most of the elements that made the first two work. Read full review
40
SlateJonathan L. FischerDec 18, 2014
Rather than having too much pure Tolkien, it offers too much pure Jackson. It may occasionally seem to be aware of its undiluted preposterousness, but that hardly eases the experience of sitting through its endless cartoonish action sequences and overwrought emotional payoffs. Read full review
40
New York Magazine (Vulture)Bilge EbiriDec 17, 2014
The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies feels thoroughly inconsequential — a bloated, portentous mess that, in a just world, should not exist. Read full review
40
New York Daily NewsJoe NeumaierDec 16, 2014
There’s far too many moments of sabre-rattling, and too much confusion about who is aligned with whom, and why. Those who know and love Tolkien’s texts will have a vested interest. Everyone else may grow restless. Read full review
40
TheWrapInkoo KangDec 1, 2014
The 144-minute running time showcases Jackson's worst tendencies: eons-long battle scenes, sloppy and abrupt resolutions, portentous romances, off-rhythm comic timing, and, newly in this case, patience-testing fan service. Read full review
40
The TelegraphTim RobeyDec 1, 2014
The trouble is that Jackson can’t make it mean very much: when every life on Middle Earth is seemingly at stake, few individually grab our attention. Read full review
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