There, the headstrong leader Thorin Oakenshield will install himself in hoarding splendor, a slave to “that terrible need” for treasure. Bilbo (Martin Freeman) watches from a distance beside the dwarfs he traveled with to Erebor. It’s a rip-roaring opening spectacle of burning buildings and refugee villagers, with Smaug (voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch with baroque cruelty) thundering over streets like a runaway bomber, until he is felled by Bard the bargeman. “The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies” follows hot on the heels of last year’s film, with the dragon Smaug giving Lake-town its promised end by fiery devastation. Jackson’s wide world here - less a central hero on a quest than a supporting player in a film bookended by destruction and war in gray, grim lands. Gandalf’s sentiment is also all too apt for Peter Jackson’s vexing conclusion to his oddly apportioned adaptation: Bilbo Baggins is indeed quite a little fellow in Mr. Tolkien’s 1937 children’s classic - now better known as the trilogized prequel to a 21st-century fantasy phenomenon. “You are only quite a little fellow in a wide world, after all,” Gandalf reminds his companion at the end of “The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies.” The avuncular line has a cozy feel that evokes the bedtime-storytelling of J.
