Slow and poe-faced with a film-runs-out-the-projector ending

Rating: 5/10 (3 September 2003)

A "little person" goes on a mission in a mystical never-never land with the help of a magic ring.
How interesting it is that this film was, for a short time, atop of the IMDb chart and still sits in the top ten. Interesting because it lacks so many of the things usually associated with IMDb top picks and has a script that is especially plodding and banal.
Special effects are well used, but most of the actors stride about in a world of their own speaking the words as if they were Shakespeare; while - in fact - it is little better than the bland dialogue of a thousand other films (TV and otherwise) that cover the same ground. Indeed films like Willow (which was a rip-off of the original book) not only has a better script, but was a more enjoyable film to watch!
Oh my word does this movie take itself sooooo seriously. Acting is not camera, but to some mystical middle distance. With most of the full sized males sporting hippie haircuts and designer Goth you wonder if it isn't a prelude to one of those extended heavy metal videos.
The problem isn't that this is a totally bad movie. It has its moments (make-up and backgrounds are stunning), only it is not very good either. Thank god it didn't win (or should I say "steal"?) Best Picture Oscar. I mean what actually happens over the six hours it seems to last? A group of people (who I care/know little about both before and after) go on a mission and others try and stop them with a load of crash-bang-whallop swordplay. Romance is thrown in like a quick commercial break, but women matter little here. To call them sideline characters would be to inflate their status.
At the end of the day J.R.R. Tolkien is a vastly overrated author. Forced as I was to read his never-never land fargos while at school, I found them boring, unimaginative (squeaky-clean-good versus ugly-unremitting-evil with coincidence and luck used to paper over the cracks) and far worse: humour less. Good descriptive language is probably their only major asset.
The home truth is that I am not really that interested in little people that live in holes in some cod-medieval never-never land. The second major point is that film has no climax - it just ends. You have to sit (and maybe pay?) to see two more films before you get to the end. I would be amazed if either of them feature anything more than small variations on the limited tricks displayed here and the last thing I want to do is go through this elongated codswhallop again.