Oh, dear. Could it have been any worse?

Rating: 1/10 (24 February 2002)

Tolkein was right. He said his story could never have been made into a film. Peter Jackson has proved him right. This movie was terrible. It's like a cross between The Mummy Returns and Xenia: Warrior Princess. But those productions are made with tongue firmly in cheek. LOTR was meant to be taken all so seriously.
It's like Monty Python and the Holy Grail but without the jokes. Very pompous and VERY overblown. Jackson is only interested in the battle scenes which are done so appalingly that you actually sit there waiting for them to be over.
The score grates and whines. Be thankfull then that you won't remember it when you leave the cinema. Some of the effects are good but others are SO bad.
The cast are also wasted. It's a good cast but the script is dismal and it lets them down badly.
I don't know why this film turned out as bad as it did. All the ingredients are there for a good movie. There is a great story, a good cast, a compotent if not awe-inspiring director, so why then is the film nothing more than a 3 hour long episode of Xenia: Warrior Princess?