Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman) and his crew of thirteen dwarves have awakened the great dragon Smaug who has flown over to the neighboring Laketown. And to make matters even worse, an army of orcs, an army of dwarves, an army of elves, an army of men, and an army of eagles have all come to the lonely mountain to fight over its possession.

The Hobbit trilogy has finally come to an end after three long years. The first movie was really good, the second one, not so much, and the third one went back to the quality of the first Hobbit movie in an amazing adventure, though not perfect.

The visuals of the movie are great, from Dwarf designs to Smaug’s attack to the snowy summit where Azog, an orc leader, resides. The movie introduces new characters and beasts like Dáin (Billy Connolly), Thorin’s hammer-wielding brother, and the Sand Worms, a species receiving only a slight mention in the Hobbit and the Silmarillion, and brings back characters from earlier in the series like the skin-changing Beorn (Mikael Persbrandt), who has an exceptional but overly brief scene.

The acting by Thorin (Richard Armitage) and Bilbo is very good revolving around the story of the Arkenstone.The fighting in this movie is slightly different than in the first two movies. Long battles against tougher orcs and the appearance of larger, more powerful orcs leads the series away from the monotony of orc decapitations, although there still are some, from the first two movies.

However, the movie wasn’t the best, as it had very little action from dwarves other than Thorin and Kili. Kili and Tauriel’s corny romance unfortunately continued throughout this movie, and Smaug had very little screen time, which was unfortunate, because he looked amazing. The movie could have probably been combined with The Desolation of Smaug to create a two-movie series, but the movie was still fun to watch.

Overall, the movie had great special effects and design but had some major problems which kept it from being as good as it could have been. I would recommend the movie for those who like action and amazing sets.