The Soul Wanderers

The Battle of Five Armies. Well, it certainly was a battle, and the movie was mostly focused on fighting. I went to see the new (and last!) Hobbit movie a few days ago, and overall, I enjoyed it, and am sad that there will be no more Tolkien movies (or will there? Silmarillion anyone?). Martin Freeman was perfect as Bilbo, and when I reread the book, I pictured him as Bilbo. The other actors were great too, and even though there were many who weren't in the books, I liked how they had some "comebacks" of Lord of the Rings (LOTR) characters, like Galadriel, Legolas (Ya!), Elrond, Saruman, and Gandalf, but Elrond and Gandalf were legitimate because they were actually in the Hobbit.
The fighting, however, was overdone to the extreme. Although the battle was mentioned to be terrible and lasting a long time in the book, there wasn't much time actually spent on it in the book. Of course, the graphics were excellent, but it was way too much. I think it would have been better if the third movie started after Smaug destroyed Laketown, just so there wouldn't be two large battles (though the actual "Battle of Five Armies" was by far the most significant one. Or if it had started when the dwarves actually entered the mountain, and then they wouldn't have had to put so much time into the battles.
Although the elves did not play much of a significant role in the book (at least, not personally, since they did come in an army to the mountain) I really liked how they introduced them as more major characters. Thranduil was an awesome character--not a good one, but it would have been a captivating movie if it were just about him. And Legolas was...well, you can't go wrong with putting Legolas in the movie. Though I did find that he was a bit too remote and cold compared to LOTR. Galadriel was also a good addition, especially the scene where she saves Gandalf and uses her powers to banish Sauron ("banish" in the sense of "delay him until LOTR starts") by going into her "creepy powerful" mode, for lack of a better word (if you've seen LOTR, you know what I mean). Although it was not as important as later scenes, that scene where she, Elrond, and Saruman came to rescue Gandalf and fight the Nazgul was one of my favourite parts (As I moved on in the movies, I grew used to them adding things in that weren't in the books, and actually liked it, because then there were things I didn't know about, so there was some surprise). In this scene, most of the members of the Grey Council came together to fight the forces of darkness, and it was really neat to see them all there being awesome. Galadriel was the main "star" in this scene, which I liked, since she's one of my favourite characters, though at the end, I didn't like it how Saruman and Elrond had to save her since she
had spent her powers. She went from being super powerful to completely powerless on the ground. I think she gave most of her strength to save Gandalf even without her banishing Sauron, so that was all right. And then Radagast comes in on his "bunny-mobile" (one of my favourite parts of the movie is these bunnies! Or rather, Rhosgobel rabbits) to take Gandalf away, so he gets to be part of the show too.
Another quite powerful scene, though this one was creepy, was when Thorin was fighting Azog on the ice and (spoiler alert) Azog falls in and there are a few moments when you see him under the ice, hoping he's dead but knowing that he couldn't really be, and he jumps out and kills Thorin. Well, Thorin kills him, but Thorin is mortally wounded.
Another added character is the elf Tauriel. I have mixed feelings about Tauriel. First of all, in the previous movie, I thought "What's she doing here? She's not in the book! She's not even in LOTR!" (hence, that's why Galadriel, Legolas, Radagast, and co. are permissible). But of course, the point was to add a major female character, because literally, there are NO female characters in the Hobbit book.  And they couldn't have had Galadriel running around killing orcs...well, they could have, but that just wouldn't fit. Anyhow, that was my only reservation, because I really liked Tauriel as a character. But of course, (spoiler alert for non-Hobbit readers), Kili dies, who she loves, so that's just more depressing. I secretly hoped Kili and Fili wouldn't die, but was prepared for it, because I knew Peter Jackson wouldn't lose the opportunity to kill off good characters when he had the book's backing. The whole love thing between Tauriel and Kili was sweet, and of course, it was with the dwarf who looked least "dwarfish" (except perhaps Thorin). I just wish Kili hadn't died, but even then, I don't think it could have worked out.
The last thing I wanted to mention was Thorin. Having recently reread the book, I realized that they made Thorin way too solemn and brooding compared to the book (they also did this with Beorn). They did a good job in this movie portraying Thorin's "dragon sickness" (gold obsession), and he acted this part really well.
So if you can put up with the fighting, this is a great movie. I think it would be awesome if Peter Jackson did more movies, even if they weren't Tolkien's actual stories, but something like a mini-series about individual characters, like their backstory, or a sort of "in the meantime, while Bilbo and co. were on their adventure...". They did a bit of that with Gandalf and the elves in the Hobbit trilogy, but more would be neat too.