The longest 3 hours ever spent in a cinema

Rating: 1/10 (13 January 2003)

I know it's a matter of taste, but I CANNOT believe this film is rated so highly!!!??? I found it to be an awful, pompous, humourless, simple-minded, way too long film for any sane person to sit through and - even more bewildering - enjoy. Whether it's the zillion childish fantasy names that get thrown at you constantly, or the seemingly endless string of battle sequence after battle sequence without any real dramatic development ("oh my! watch out! yet another group of really weird looking gnomes out to kill us, quick, that way everybody!! Phewww... we just barely survived - on to the next!"), or the annoyingly dreamy blue eyes of the main character, or the simplistic way of looking at good vs. evil - i just couldn't stand it. If it wasn't for my girlfriend who loves the Tolkien books and who i ha d promised to give it a fair shot (which i REALLY did), i probably would've walked out after 45 minutes at the latest. Kitschy, over-budgeted, highly overrated heroic fantasy spectacle - Yuk.