Why so ugly?

Rating: 7/10 (25 December 2001)

I give it 7 out of 10.
I decided I had to see this film when I saw a picture of Rivendell in Newsweek. Unfortunately FOTR has very few beautiful scenes like this one, and too many ugly ones. Of course some ugliness is necessary to the story, but Jackson put in far more than necessary. (E. g., we don't need to see Saruman training his orcs.) Lothlorien should have been beautiful; it was merely dim and dreary. I was also disappointed by the casting of Liv Tyler and Cate Blanchett. The roles of Arwen and Galadriel are bit-parts that don't require much acting; they only require perfect faces, and perfect faces were not cast.
The other thing I'll complain about is that Frodo whines too much, giving Gandalf opportunities to utter speeches that are supposed to sound wise, but are actually trivial. There wasn't nearly so much of that in the book.