“Let’s take this once more from the top! Real actors to the south, CG replicants to the north, and…ACTION! STAB STAB STABBY-STAB STAB!”

The end of the beginning is here! The epilogue of the prologue has arrived! The grand finale that goes in the middle of the story, even though it was hardly there originally, is finally out! And now it’s time for Part 3 of 6: the Final Chapter!

In An Unexpected Journey we watched a disgruntled Tim from The Office saunter through dangerous territories and endure slovenly dwarven hijinks. In The Desolation of Smaug we watched a resourceful Dr. John Watson brave wild carnival rides and face the growly wrath of a super-sized, serpentine Sherlock Holmes. And now, in The Battle of the Five Armies, director Peter Jackson takes us on one last guided tour of Middle-Earth filled with racial politics, emotional turmoil, treasure addiction, star-crossed lovers, all-out war, Revenge of the Sith continuity knot-tying, video game magic, the world’s funniest riding animals, and a few special appearances by frazzled hitchhiker Arthur Dent. Closure is truly ours for the taking.

Short version for the unfamiliar: Mighty Smaug, the fearsome Big Bad of this landmark trilogy, faces his comeuppance at last, at the hand of a bold new hero named Bard, as played by Dracula Untold. Theirs is a suspenseful face-off over the rooftops of Lake-town involving great infernal blasts, swooping cameras, and a very special bow ‘n’ arrow, which is all the rage with the kids these days. After several minutes of confrontation, there can be only one survivor, and so it goes. The End. Roll credits. This concludes The Hobbit Saga. James Bard will return in The Man with the Golden Fish.

But wait, there’s more! Since many American moviegoers might complain at paying ten bucks for a fifteen-minute movie, after The Smaug Who Loved Me end credits there’s an entire, completely separate, basically free movie called The Battle of the Five Armies in which the entire planet fights over ownership rights to Smaug’s loot. It’s a feature-length free-for-all between the cast of the first two films, starving humans, action dwarves, snobby upper-class elves, those rascally orcs, superfluous goblins, the AD&D Monster Manual‘s greatest hits, and, in their wackiest cameo yet, those blasted eagles of DEMCRO (Deus Ex Machina Club, Royally Overhyped), who could totally rule Middle-Earth if they ever showed up on time for a battle. Just once. Any battle at all.

Hey, look, it’s that one actor!: In addition to the lengthy role call from the other five films, we’re joined by one new face, Billy Connolly (Brave, How to Train Your Dragon) as the trash-talking dwarf warrior Ironfoot, who rides a war pig and, according to some internet, would later be king of the dwarves during the events of The Lord of the Rings.

Also not mentioned in the MCC entries covering the first two films: after playing Azog the Defiler in An Unexpected Journey under layers of CG coating, Manu Bennett went on to greater in-person visibility as Deathstroke on TV’s Arrow. So that’s checked off now.

Meaning or EXPLOSIONS? Countless essays have been written over the decades concerning the themes present in the complete J. R. R. Tolkien bibliography. As far as Five-Army Battle goes, the primary themes and morals are:

1. Honor and promises are good.
2. Dishonesty is bad.
3. Greed is extremely bad, unless it results in extra movies.
4. Loyalty is cool; blind loyalty, not so much.
5. Racism is irritating.
6. There is no #6.
7. Who doesn’t like spending one last time with old friends? Even if they look older when they’re not supposed to look older?
8. All love is doomed. ALL OF IT.
9. 2½ years is far too long to spend journeying away from home without hiring a housesitter.

Nitpicking? I had more problems beyond those poked at above. Chief above all else: the original trilogy ruined large-scale battles for me for all time. A thousand CG artists using a thousand state-of-the-art mainframes to paint carefully choreographed skirmishes between thousands upon thousands of nameless combatants may take months and years of planning and labor hours, but returns on this trope have been diminishing ever since The Two Towers, all the way through every effects-burdened fantasy, SF, or real-world war film that’s tried replicating WETA Workshop’s works from 2002 to the present. Overpopulated faux battlefields are only good for a few fleeting thrills before they send my mind wandering. Hence all the list-making in this entry.

While we’re here:

* Jackson & Co. care for Alfrid the toady a lot more than I did. Heavyweights like Galadriel, Elrond, and Saruman share but a single scene; most of the original thirteen dwarves have one line or less; one major LOTR character is present only as a glib mention; but Alfrid is all over the place in many moments and locations and just won’t go away.

* Why are characters in several scenes illumined by eerie, warm, fuzzy, fakey, breakfast-food-commercial glows?

* Elrond and Saruman get to show off their combat skills (and for Elrond, it’s about time), but they’re wasted on a frustrating fight where the enemies keep respawning until the cut-scene ends and we realize these are Lord of the Rings bosses they had no chance of beating, because prequel. Their last hurrah is all vectors and no victory.

* Some battles are cooler than others. Overall I prefer physical battles with practical stunts to video game cutscenes, so none of the title bouts here — Thorin versus Azog; Legolas versus a key henchman; Dwarf 7 and Dwarf 12 versus Orcs 1,968 through 1,985; Tauriel versus males — strike anywhere near the same visceral impact as Aragorn versus Lurtz, still one of my all-time favorite movie fights even though it’s barely one minute long. Thorin and Azog are rightly Best of Show, but their extended grudge match drags a little, especially compared to Legolas’ occasionally wacky Super Mario impression.

* Ironfoot’s war pig wasn’t nearly as hilarious to me as Thranduil’s oversize, majestic, mighty magic moose. I’m sure it’s a real Middle-Earth creature with its own distinct name and characteristics. Regardless, while Ronan the Accuser/Ned the Piemaker was holding his chin high and keeping his posture finishing-school perfect and cranking his haughtiness up to 11, I couldn’t stop wondering if his super-antlered elf-moose was cousins with Sven from Frozen. And yes, even before that, I had Bullwinkle thoughts. Maybe it’s unfair of me to stereotype moose as strictly comedy animals, but I can’t grasp the idea of a War Moose without snickering.

So did I like it or not? To the extent that 5 Army 5 Furious represents the last hurrah for Jackson’s silver-screen Tolkienverse and tries its best to throw the greatest party of all time for fans who’ve loved the series from Fellowship of the Ring onward, without caring whether or not it deserves to be a film unto itself, on those terms I kinda liked it anyway despite my multiple misgivings. My mind has no problem contradicting itself like that sometimes. It’s 140+ minutes of Jackson and his closest friends pulling off one last job before they sail away into the Middle-Earth death sunset. Sometimes it’s about Art, but mostly it’s about giving us a show-stopping encore.

When non-player characters aren’t crowding the screen from edge to edge, we’re granted high-end performances from Ian McKellen, Lee Pace, a part-heroic part-Gollum-ing Richard Armitage, at least two of the other twelve dwarves, a scary Cate Blanchett, Bard James Bard, and especially Martin Freeman as the conflicted yet ultimately noble heart of Middle-Earth itself, embodying the simple ideals too easily drowned out in all the HD hubbub. Bilbo Baggins may not have any classic fencing scenes or daredevil stunts or even any special finishing moves to end the war all by himself, but it’s him working behind the scenes, doing the uncredited heavy lifting, playing both Rosencrantz and Guildenstern at once, swaying a few who stray from the path, and in the long game serving as the secret MVP whose ring-bearer duties would make the future victories of Frodo, Sam, and even King Aragorn possible. Screen time or not, that’s why Bilbo’s above the titles.

That being said, as the shortest of all six films, I’m afraid to ask what next year’s Extended Edition will add. Hopefully not more Alfrid, because screw that guy.

How about those end credits? To answer the burning question that MCC is always happy to verify: no, there’s no scene after The Battle of the Five Armies end credits, but anyone who sticks around is treated to a montage of main character renderings and concept art, enough to paper the entire scroll from beginning to end. If you’re not planning to buy this on Blu-ray, these end credits are the last Middle-Earth special features you’ll ever see.