A peice of absolute epic garbage.

Rating: Null/10 (30 December 2001)

There are pretty much two ideas of this film, one it's great, two it's ok-- the books are better. However both are quite mistaken, quite mistaken indeed.
This movie is trash, absolute and utter trash.
Not that the books are better, which they are, or that this movie sways to far away from them, which it does as well, but that this film is, well, just plain bad.
Now visually, it's somewhat good, some scenes are great, most are normal, in fact quite a few are terrible, but I'll just says it's ok.

The acting, well, the acting never really matters to me, so I won't bother to talk about it.
The sound, is, probably the best part about it, which, however, isn't saying much.
The story is decent, I was never much a fan of the story, even in the book, to begin with but I guess it will do.
My problem lies in the pacing.
The film is paced horrendously bad. The book had perfect pacing, but here they screwed it all up, they make the long sense short, the short scenes long, and the best scenes (for the most part) absent.
Also the film goes on and on forever, like the ending of AI, the movie wants to end it's self but doesn't seem to be able to thanks to the fact of the director, the editor, the screenplay, studio, source material and everything else.
In fact at the end of each and every scene I felt the movie wanted to end. Every five minutes a found a new perfect ending, but none of them were used, it went on and on and on.
Another problem (once again due to pacing) is the fact that the film has no idea how to switch gears, smoothly. It has no clue how to go from fast and exciting, slow and poetic, intense and emotional, and just plain intense.

We feel like we're watching a made-for-TV movie, without the commercials.

I think that maybe it would be better for business- instead of putting in sly product placements just every five minutes place in a well meaning two minute commercial break. Then all of us could just enjoy the film and blame this last point on the commercials instead of the stupidity of those who made it, which is the only place I'm left to place the blame.

I understand that making three movies and once is a hard thing to do, in fact I understand that making one movie and once is a hard thing to do, but why is the question I'm asking, why? The only reasons I could come up with were- a) the studio couldn't afford three separate films, in which case none of them should've been made, period. Or- b)as a simply, good old fashioned, Cecil B. Demillian marketing ploy, a publicity stunt and if such is the case I will never just shrug it off and say, well it's because of the schedule, as everyone seems to state.
Who knows maybe the second and third films will be greater. I do not anticipate returning but accept that I must, as my mother is a great fan of this one, and will drag me kicking and screaming to see it, at least I think she will.
I got a bad feeling about this film when I heard that J R.R. Tolkien's grandson was disowned by good ole dad by supporting the making of this film, and to tell the truth I think it was a good move, in fact I might've done it myself had I knew they it would've been like this!
The book was a about fantasy, the movie about money, the book about a world, the movie about action, the book about life, the movie about death.

Now maybe some people like to see those things on a film, I am quite a big fan of huge multi-million dollar epics, and I love to view death/violence/carnage on screen- usually, but I hate action, in fact, it doesn't excite me in the least, it usually just gives me a headache, and that's at this films core, and thus all I got from this film was an immense craving for aspirin- not a good sign, if you ask me.