Just another blockbuster and not one of the really good ones.

Rating: 6/10 (14 April 2019)

I don't get the hysteria around this movie. What is it that people are going mad for? It just seems like generic high fantasy that every Power Metal album is telling (much more enjoyably in my opinion).
I get it's based on a book that defined fantasy fiction for a generation but that doesn't make it any less dated. Dorian Grey was written even earlier but it's movies still seem fresh.
What really gets me with this movie is how SERIOUS it is. I don't mind a serious movie and I am very willing to believe a fantasy story can have just as much substance and nuance as a novel by Dostoevsky (I presume he has depth, I've never read him. Nor anything by Tolkien and I don't plan to).
But this is SO stone faced it becomes risible. And no, it's not some kind of adult take on the fantasy genre. An adult movie wouldn't be so simplistic as to color code the horses. The Nazgul OBVIOUSLY have to ride black horses while the elf (who is WAY TO TALL to be an elf) just as obviously missed the sale on black horses and gets a palamino. Because good guys ride white horses. Nothing to do with ethics or tenacity, it's all the horse.
This movie has nothing to say beyond "once upon a time some little people had a magical adventure where they had to go from A to B and nothing else beyond this".
Maybe the other movies expand on certiain themes, I have not seen them. Don't tell me the ring is a metaphor for corruption or impunity like the Ring of Gyges because they do nothing with this idea other than make it a good ex machina.
What recommends the movie is the behind the camera talent. It all looks pretty stunning but a lot of it is simply wasted since the story gives me no reason to really care about this world or any of the bland under developed characters. I am literally more invested in the narrative in Rhapsody of Fire Concept albums based on the sparse usage of spoken word. I really feel Ralph Bakshi, while maybe not having the same technical skill or resources to realize this world so impressively, just had a better understanding of how to not just make a world look real but feel as it's a place I could go and want to go.
The hammed up, over-acting, the cheesy lines ("it's the fairy queen!", the paper thin plot stretched to breaking point over 170 minutes (I was thinking at one point that the movie wasn't half bad so long as they wrap it up soon and an HOUR later they did), the only aspect of the movie that really comes up trumps is the score which I hate to love.
If you aren't into the books...even if you haven't seen this movie, you've seen it in a thousand other things that may not have had the budget but had a lot more heart.