I often approach this type of thing with a fair amount of scepticism. It's petty and a nuisance, but I don't like my completist tendencies, I don't want homework, and so I can sometimes be less open hearted than I'd like to be when it comes to the real macdaddies of film academe, like this one.

There's usually some sort of technical board pin to spot. The first film to employ such-and-such. Poetic Realism in the case of this film,…

Not as awful as some people have made it out to be, I don't think. If you have some sentiment for the series i'm sure you'll dig Five Armies, but it is a borderline shambles a lot of the time. We were probably all bracing ourselves for this kind of slop when the guy said he wants to wring three movies out of that book, and the resulting bloatedness of this trilogy has pretty much ruined all the imagination and…