Look underneath the surface for greatness

Rating: 9/10 (3 January 2002)

1st of all may i say that i have never rated a movie a 10 nor a 1. I dont believe in such extremes. Before i break the lord of the rings down i should also comment that the hype of the movie has seemingly attracted many people who have no buisness watching this movie. And therefore, whouldn't have any buisness reviewing it. People who crave sunday morning cartoons are more likely to rate "the cider house rules" lower than others. the same logic applies here, and it is a two way street. OH and one more thing, whats with all this talk about greatest movie ever......i dont understand...THERE IS NO GREATEST MOVIE EVER. not citizen cane, not the godfather, nor lord of the rings. Heck, somebody in mississippi probably thinks "weird science" is the greatest movie ever. And who fights over movies, the only people that have the authority to talk smack about who's got the better movie is the people who made them. Anyway, the lord of the rings is a strong movie, why strong...the other words, great, grand, fantastic, are played out and dont truelly chracterize a moive. Strong on the other hand represents its ability to succeed in many differant areas. Why strong, i dont have alot of time to watch moives, nor the time to see one twice...but somehow it got me in there twice...why?...most people rate movies based on action, effects, and sometimes acting (even though most people arent qualified to judge acting) I on the otherhand suspect other elements besdides the surface factors. Acting is key, i felt the acting in some areas of the movie transcended hollywood acting (acting that isn't great but good enough to keep people from gagging). everyone was supurb...their use of subtext made you feel the characters more than hear their spoken words. This alone puts it ahead most movies budgeted over 100 mill. Another element consistantly overlooked is multidemensional characters....people are booing at the fact that some arent as well rounded as others....only because they werent introduced in some grandoise fashion. The principle characters gandalf, frodo, and Aragorn are introduced well...the others, there are too many of them. Most of them don't have roles large enough to desearve large attention. However with the attention that was given ,especially Boromir, it was used well. Boromir was a speicial character for me. I felt the inner conflict within him. how he was torn between forces beyond his control and ultimately gave in to the ID of his personality only to snap out of it in time to die in honor. It is the characters that the movie is about and i felt empathetic toward them. When gandalf died so did my heart. When Boromir died i was proud that he tried to redeem himself. Without strong characters you dont have a strong movie. Finally, the most powerful element of the movie was once again something beneath the surface. The themes of the movie were mature (theme: what the heck was the movie about underneath the screen, resolution, pixels)...This movie dared to express ideas concerning the human condition rather than simply give us great visuals and large sets, and all those meaningless nothings that people rate movies on nowadays. And these themes, how man is weak, how evil turns people against themselves, how even smaller people can be the bravest, the tru pain of losing someone, the fear of the unknown. the themes of this movie are so well expressed, real, and so deep, they pierced my soul so far as i was able to look past hobbits, dwarfs, and elf's to see humans and how we really are and i was utterly drawn to it and as i left the theater i dont know why, some of the story telling was off, plot holes ext. ext. some parts did drag a bit blah blah blah blah.....I HAD TO SEE IT AGAIN...after seeing it again I......HAVE TO SEE IT AGAIN. Lord of the rings is not the greatest movie ever made and to its credit no movie is the greatest ever made, everyone has their own great movie. However, this movie is a symbol of great storytelling....in that it is what is underneath that is why it is so great and with movies like these they only get stronger over time.