7. The Hobbit: The Battle Of The Five Armies (Finally) Ends The Franchise
Expectations were undeniably high for the final entry into Peter Jackson's six-film Middle Earth franchise, even though the previous two Hobbit movies had drawn mixed notices from critics and audiences. Surely the final movie couldn't help but deliver an awe-inspiring finale, right? Well, The Battle of the Five Armies is, in fact, the worst-reviewed of the six movies, for though the battle scenes entertain and it provides a firm lead-in to The Lord of the Rings, it also still feels rather bloated, the CGI is laughably poor, and it further fails to justify the need for a relatively short book to be split into 3 movies. Still, the movie was unsurprisingly a box office juggernaut, as these films are essentially critic-proof, and stand as a towering example of how easily an acclaimed auteur such as Jackson can exploit his and Tolkein's fanbase. Still, nobody put a gun to the audience's heads, so it's not like they're blameless for encouraging this cash-grabbing behaviour either.