The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies is an uninspired goodbye to Middle Earth. When Lord of the Rings arrived in the dreary year of 9/11, it set the standard for big epic battle scenes, wowed us with every beautifully-shot sequence and sequel, and even inspired a generation of filmmakers to outdo it. And yet, as its architect Peter Jackson delivered two prequels, The Hobbit has done something I could never have imagined: they became bloated, predictable, and even bored. Sadly, The Battle of the Five Armies does nothing to alleviate those concerns, displaying its true colors of drab and disappointment. With the dragon Smaug (Benedict Cumberbatch) released to destroy Laketown, Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman) and his Dwarf allies must deal with a new problem: the dragon madness which is about to consume their leader Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitage). Caught between Thorin's increasingly brutal demands and the arrival of the Elvenking Thranduil (Lee Pace), Bilbo...