Five Armies, No Waiting

For the most part the holidays were spent in attitudes of collapse, but I did manage to drag myself to the theater to viewThe Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies.
Those who remember my notes on the previous two films will recall that I feared the third movie would consist only of the Battle of Lake Town, the Battle of Dol Guldur, and the Battle of the Five Armies, for two and a half hours of solid combat. And alas, I was pretty much right.
The Battle of Dol Guldur, at least, is mercifully brief,...