Excruciating

Rating: 1/10 (9 December 2002)

As I am one of the twelve or so people on Earth who hates the original novel, it is perhaps unsurprising that I harbour similar contempt for the cinematic adaptation. Nonetheless, I feel a strange obligation to raise a dissenting voice against the tirade of undeserved praise that has been heaped upon this film. Admittedly, the film-makers had quite a task on their hands in attempting to convert such a ponderous, pretentious, twee and long-winded book into something vaguely enjoyable- but, surely, it didn't have to be this bad- around three hours of empty bombast, CGI over-indulgence, unintentionally hilarious pseudo-archaic dialogue ("Return the ring to Mount Doom from whence it came"- how laughably portentous can you get?) and unintentionally unfunny jokes make for a miserable cinematic experience, not helped by the stilted, career-worst performances from such usually-reliable actors as Ian McKellen, Ian Holm and Cate Blanchett. Perhaps the greatest tragedy of all is the depressing fact that this was directed by the once-great Peter Jackson, a man responsible for some of the most deliriously enjoyable and anarchic films of the last twenty years in Bad Taste, Braindead and Meet the Feebles. His early work may be cheap, nasty, offensive, sick and excessively violent, but at least they were FUN. This film feels like a long, LONG trip through the diseased mind of a Tolkien enthusiast- in other words, tedious, self-important and depressing.