Best Of

Exodus: God and Kings: 7/10: Pretty boring, but the cinematography, acting and action scenes were good.

Fifty Shades of Grey: 8/10: Pretty good movie. Dakota Johnson was EXCELLENT as Anastasia Steele. Jamie Dornan as Christian Grey... not as much. At first I was upset when I heard he might not return for the sequels. Now, I don't mind. Other actors could play that role better (Ian Somerhalder please!). The Sex scenes were... sexy and well shot. Cinemtography (especially during the sex scenes) was BRILLIANT! The movie was also pretty funny. Some of the dialogue was eye-rolling and cringeworthy though, but that is mostly cause it was taken from the book. Saw a couple of things that seemed to be taken straight from Twilight, though. That too was cringeworthy. Oh, and the ending was TERRIBLE and so out of place, my goodness, that was a bad place to end it. My rating is generous, mostly because of Dakota Johnson and hot sex scenes.

You know how in the Spinner's End chapter in HBP we find out that Voldemort has assigned Wormtail to be Snape's servant? I'm wondering how that came to be. Was it like "Snape, I'm going to make Wormtail your servant"? Or was it "My lord, I would like to request Wormtail as my servant" and Voldemort granted Snape's request.

I also wonder about Snape being knocked out in the Shrieking Shack by Harry's Expelliarmus spell. Just imagine you are Snape, a Death Eater who is working for Dumbledore. You hear Sirius Black talk about a rat. You know that one of your fellow Death Eaters, Peter Pettigrew, had the ability to transfigure into a rat. You want to find out more, but can't risk doing so in front of Pettigrew himself. What if he intentionally provoked Harry into getting so angry that he cast a spell in which Harry, the others in the shack, and the reader think he's been knocked unconscious, but he's fully aware of what's going on?

I saw it yesterday in IMAX 3D, unfortunately this one is by far the worst of the trilogy. First of all, I liked the first two (in fact: I freaking loved DoS!), but this one confirms that the decision to split this book into three movies was mostly a financial decision.

Pro's:
- Performances (Armitage is a standout here).
- Fabulous king Thranduil.
- Locations (is that even a surprise?).
- Gorgeous cinematography.
- 3D (did not get a chance to see the HFR yet).
- Every minute with Smaug is gold.

Con's:
- The story line is WAY too thin.
- I hardly say this, but, too much action (just a bit more than DoS would've already done it for me) and not enough quiet, emotional scenes.
- Death of misses an emotional punch and aftermath.
- Alfrid (a.k.a. Wormtongue replacement) has a lot of screen time in this movie. However, all his scenes are completely annoying and unfunny.
- The characters I wanted to see got less or no screen time ().
- Just as with the Star Wars prequels, from time to time it looks like you're watching a Pixar animated movie.
- The film wraps up pretty sloppy (RotK didn't do it perfectly either but instead of an ending that's too long, this one is too short) --> Also, I unfortunately noticed only a few tie-ins into LOTR.
- Tauriel and Kili, and I don't think I even have to explain why this is a con.

The big con's section might see like I hate it, but in fact the pro's slightly outweigh the con's here for me.
6/10

That makes this my ranking of all middle earth movies:
1. Return of the King (9.5/10)
2. The Desolation of Smaug (9/10)
3. The Two Towers (8.5/10)
4. Fellowship of the Ring (8/10)
5. An Unexpected Journey (8/10)
6. The Battle of the Five Armies (6/10)

Although this finale that didn't do it for me, the dedication that has been put into these movies can only result into saying one thing:
Thank you, Peter Jackson.