Brilliantly directed trash

Rating: 6/10 (7 July 2005)

In a world far, far away, a hobbit named Frodo got a mysterious ring that must be destroyed in order to stop the evil forces of Sauron. But the ring can only be destroyed in a volcano of Mordo. On his journey a wizard called Gandalf is assisting him...
"The lord of the rings" trilogy is an event almost to big for me to swallow it. But you just have to give it credit: it's really rare to find such an ambitious example of fantasy films with special effects that last for 3 hours. And it's messages about the abuse and corruption of power.
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The first film, "The fellowship of the ring", was a huge success: it was nominated for 4 Golden Globes and 13 Oscars, and on the site Rotten-Tomatoes.com it got an amazing critic's average grade of 8.1/10. Well, "The fellowship" really is a really good film, but after seeing it lately I couldn't hide my shock of how outdated it became in only a few years. That's mostly the fault of the terribly written dialogs, which look almost as if taken from some B film. The other problem is that the the story and it's characters lack a soul. They give an impression of a pale, mechanical puppet. Still, Peter Jackson is one talented director. Some scenes were pure genius ( like Arwen saving Frodo on a horse and creating a water army from the river that "flushes" away the bad guys ) and the set design is awesome ( cute hobbit houses "digged" in the ground ). That's why it's too bad that the whole film wasn't as good and warm as the magical soundtrack from Enya. All in all, I have to agree at some point with the brilliant director Peter Greenaway who commented on this film, calling it "just a cynical exercise".
Grade: 6/10