Cast: Ian McKellen, Martin Freeman, Richard Armitage, Luke Evans, Evangeline Lilly, Orlando Bloom, Aidan Turner, Manu Bennett, Lee Pace, Stephen Fry, Sylvester McCoy, Benedict Cumberbatch, Cate Blanchett, Christopher Lee, Ian Holm

 Director: Peter Jackson

144 min.

The concluding part of the trilogy - The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies builds to a series of at-times utterly preposterous battles against scarred and gum-fleshed orc chiefs, which Tolkien had never included in his book. Despite that, it has to be admitted, they're individually spectacular, staged with real invention by director Peter Jackson, who is as good at this kind of stuff as anyone in the history of cinema. But they just keep coming, like a tap of water someone didn’t bother to turn off in a relentless, visually exhausting gush. The Hobbit is less an inventive narrative than it is an endless cacophony of oddball creatures bashing the hell out of one another.

Nothing wrong with that, if you revel in mind-numbing CGI violence, and that will assuredly mark Part 3 as the most crowd-pleasing of the series. However it’s possible that this outing will enrage the Tolkien afficionados who have always baulked at Jackson's vulgar re-imagining of the tales to lengthen the box office brand. Personally, I felt that this finale actually offers, certainly for the initial hour or so, Jackson's most on-song storytelling since The Fellowship Of The Ring. The conflicts and relationships are clear enough, and thankfully there's nothing as naff here, as Aragorn being saved from falling from a cliff by the love of a horse in The Two Towers.

Shot for Imax in Hi Frame Rate 3-D, the opening dragon attack is spectacular, shot with a clarity and power missing from The Destruction of Smaug's botched climax. A haunted-city showdown between shivery ghost knights and Galadriel (Cate Blanchett), Elrond (Hugo Weaving) and Saruman (Christopher Lee) proves almost as grand. This film benefits from the fact that there's finally a theme to digest – the corrupting power of greed albeit the ages-old ‘gold-madness’. Richard Armitage as head dwarf Thorin, gets to go nuts at the sight of a vast arena of glittery coins - a Treasure of the Sierra Madre-type bamstick, a stern Scrooge with a touch of Howard Hughes. He forsakes the world and his people to cosy up with his treasure. As always though with Jackson, a stubborn king refuses to aid a world in need, and when he softens he's bathed in divine light with no real narrative source as to why. The local elves want their cut of the loot, as do refugees from the town destroyed by the dragon Thorin and those hanging around since Part 2, when suddenly, bang on cue - there's one of those pesky orc armies who pop up from nowhere.

Somewhere in there is Martin Freeman, so endearing and resourceful as Bilbo in the first two films, saying, “I'll find myself a safe place to stand” and then getting knocked out for much of the film. Bilbo and the Shire get the final reel, of course, but the goodbyes aren't as protracted as they were in The Return of the King - nor as the introductions were in An Unexpected Journey. In fact, other than the overkill on the killing, this finale finds Jackson at last making concessions to those needing to head to the loo (rest rooms), as The Battle of the Five Armies comes in at under two and a half hours, some 15 minutes shorter than its predecessor but still around the length of Bilbo's dinner party in part one. Hold that result – I’d almost forgotten about the inevitable three-day extended cut director’s versions for blu-ray. Just when you thought it was - finally - all over. Gulp. I’m about to spew my Ring.