I wanted a movie, and I didn't see one

Rating: 5/10 (25 January 2002)

Sheesh! I really don't understand the reception this movie has gotten. It was too long, and STILL it couldn't make me care about the characters. There were WAY too many LOUD fight scenes, and not enough plot and character development. So many peaceful scenes were cut short by abrupt cuts to obnoxiously noisy following scenes, that I got sick of noticing how many times it happened. How can a movie make you think about larger themes of good, evil and power when it doesn't give you *time* to think?

And how are you supposed to care about the death of a character when there's hardly anything in the script about him up to that point? How are you supposed to care about these different races when you know nothing about them? We learn a little bit about hobbits, but not enough. We learn hardly *anything*, zip, zero, about the race of men. Ditto elves. Why should we care about the romance of Arwen and Aragorn if we only get 1 tiny little scene about it? (It amazes me that people say this movie has romance). I cared somewhat about Frodo, but I got to the point where, if I saw him gazing at someone wide-eyed ONCE more I was going to stab myself through the head with my popcorn (this isn't as easy as it sounds).
The special effects were great, but special effects, action scenes and wide-eyed gazing do NOT make a movie!