I must be one of the few

Rating: 8/10 (6 January 2013)

Now I haven't read to book but I am a fan of the original Star Wars trilogy so epic franchises aren't foreign to me at all. I must be one of the few that just wasn't completely blown away by this franchise.
These films are good but to me they aren't worthy of really good, like Godfather good or Dark Knight good. I would make it Titanic good.
Well the effects are mind blowing given that this was less than a decade after Jurassic Park. Also the sweeping shots of the New Zealand landscape were incredible. There was a really rich blend of colours used to indicate the tone of each scene. All in all it does a great job in showing the epicness and that the stakes are incredibly high. The casting was very well done. A very ambitious and fruitful effort which took between 4 to 6 years to make.
OK now that's out of the way. There are a lot of elements of this film that really took me out of it. I know its nitpicking but all this stuff happens way too often.
First of all the choice of close up shots. I know that this film won an Oscar for cinematography, but for every sweeping shot of landscape, there's a weird close up shots. Why is there a wide angle lens shaky camera in front of Sam's face? What's with the chopping of frames in some shots? Why is the camera so invasive to so many actors' faces? Then there are just some moments that come off as silly. Like when Saruman was spinning Gandalf on his head, it looked like he was break dancing. Or when Elrond was chanting in Elvish, they used a wide angle lens right in front of his face with a fading background and its edited so weirdly. Then there's the crying. Oh man how many characters just keep shedding that one tear. All Arwen ever does is cry. And I laughed when Boromir spontaneously cried when Galadriel communicated with him. Galadriel by the way just came off as creepy.
The biggest thing that annoyed me was Frodo. To me he just came off as, and I'm sorry for saying this, retarded. OK I know Frodo is meant to be this non-adventure seeking hobbit with very little warrior skills but HE KEEPS FALLING DOWN! I know he is under four feet tall but seriously that doesn't mean he has the coordination of a toddler! He is the main protagonist and his constant clumsiness really took me out of the film. Every other hobbit was likable but holy smokes.
But still after all this, this really paved the way for larger films and is still quite epic. One redeemable part of this film is Ian McKellan's performance. Magneto saves the day.