Couldn't disagree more

Rating: Null/10 (22 April 2012)

First of all, the visuals are stunning in all three movies. My favorite, the attack of the Ents. All of the battle scenes were great, as well the trek through the caves. Special effects unparalleled.
Problem for me: no one to identify with. Elijah Wood's Frodo was a disaster; throughout the trilogy his conflict with the power of the Ring struck me as more of a struggle with constipation. And no else rose above the level of journeyman; all good actors, all performances either flat or histrionic. I just couldn't care about any of them and, in the Fellowship, I actually found trying to watch the meeting forming the fellowship painful.
No doubt a lot of my disappointment stems from comparison with the book. Tolkien spends a lot of time establishing the Shire as a Eden, all innocence and ignorance of the big bad world beyond. Frodo's initial journey was one of broadening horizons, a pantomime of the journey from childhood to adulthood, culminating with the recognition of the power of the Ring and the formation of the Fellowship to deal with it. The rest of the trilogy is, basically, an adventure tale. Tolkien, with a lot of precedent to draw from, from the English glorification of the rustic ideal to Treasure Island, succeeded beyond measure. The movies don't.
One problem: the English (New Zealand might as well be one of the British Isles, culturally it shares England's core values) don't really understand their own literature. English culture is all about order and repairing that order when it's knocked out of whack. English lit is all about the individual's struggle both with his/her culture and the larger issues of just plain living. This emphasis began with what we call Old English poetry (Beowulf, The Wanderer, the Wayfarer, Deor) and Shakespeare had tons of fun with it in Hamlet and Macbeth and Lear, playing the Individual off the Re-establishment of Order with virtuosity. Dorthy Sayers did the same with Lord Peter Wimsey.
Point is, the Lord of the Rings Trilogy suffers from being English; in fact it seems to deliberately down play the characters as individuals. There were times that I couldn't distinguish Aragorn from Boromir or Gandalf from Saruman and, when Gandalf is resurrected from the pit, he seems to be an entirely new character. Tolkien did not suffer from these confusions.
Another problem, the nature of the conflict: Tolkien was obviously thinking of Germany and Russia vrs the weak Western democracies as they existed during the 30's but the English have a very different read on the resulting conflict than the other Allies. Again, to the English, the war was about restoring order, with overtones of good vrs evil but not really. And the movies reflect this lack of scope. For all of its grandeur, I just didn't get a sense that the conflict encompassed the apocalyptic conflict between the values of Good and the values of Evil, as it did in Tolkien's original.
So, I disagree and, despite the production values, give it four stars.
A final point: I couldn't get into the movies because of the acting, emphasis and lack of moral scope; all very personal parameters. If you were able to get into them, for whatever reason, more power to you. I would have loved to do the same.
A P.S. - I did identify with the Ents.