Nothing spectacular...

Rating: 7/10 (6 June 2002)

I was disappointed with this movie. It's not that I 'disliked' it, but it all seemed so ordinary, and typical. Nothing really inventive or spectacular. Fight some orcs, carry around a ring, whisper to each other about strange portents and impending evil, travel around a bit, fight some more orcs... For a three-hour movie, it left me with very, very little that was memorable. I thought the smoke ship going through the smoke ring, and Gandalf's fireworks were creative, and gave a sense of wonder, and I expected more of the same after that, but didn't get it. Some fantastic scenery, but does that really give credit to a film, or to God?? Elijah Wood, as Frodo, had the same pained expression on his face the whole movie. Vitto Morgenson and Ian MacKellen were both fitting for their roles, as were others, but there wasn't all that much to the roles themselves. I suppose that's the problem of trying to condense an epic story into a comparatively brief movie. One thing I found annoying is how everyone seemed to whisper their lines, especially during what would seem to be the important conversations. That seems to be a convention of acting and films these days, and it's baffling. It's as if everyone has laryngitis, or is in a library. The fight scenes were, well, fight scenes. Again, nothing special or different than what might be expected. Good guys kill everyone with one blow, and can take several blows themselves and survive. And when the two wizards fight each other, what could have been an interesting confrontation seems unfulfilled. My wife commented that the sound effects for the orcs sounded as if they were pulled from a stock sound effects CD or something.
I don't mean to totally bash the film, but it's as though it would have made an incredible TV miniseries, but not a great FILM series. For something that should have been REALLY COOL, it just misses the mark of ever reaching that. Sadly, in the preview for the next film (attached onto the end - the first time I've ever seen that!), it doesn't look like we're in for much better next time. Looks about the same, which is not surprising, as they were all filmed together. Perhaps the story might be more interesting, and they might do more, instead of just evading orcs, so that might be good.
That this has been ranked #3 of all time is truly astounding. I'm just glad it has now been bumped down from #2. Shawshank Redemption deserves that place much more than this movie.