not the masterpiece its made out to be

Rating: 7/10 (26 December 2001)

The profound battle between the power of good over the forces of evil kind of gets overshadowed by non stop battles and visual effects that I assume are suppossed to blow us away. The bombastic loud volume is annoying to people like myself who grew up on classic sci fi like 2001-a space oddysey. I assume all that shrill noise pounding our ears into pulp is going to make us truly frightened. Well it does not. To truly appreciate what a sense of real evil is all about there are films that convey that meaning rather well and at a fraction of the cost. Some of those that come to mind are 'Psycho','The Haunting','Blair Witch Project'. At no time was I or my girlfriend ever the least bit afraid. Bored yes. 'Lord of the rings' doesn't deliver the message it seems desperate to get out. Evil permeates its overwhelming grip on mankind but even ordinary humans can rise to the challenge. All is lost in hokey visual overkill that is indistinguishable from all the other loud screeching movies at the local cineplex. I really wanted to like this movie and perhaps be inspired to read the books which I believe are better than the movie. The characters are strictly two dimensional and we've seen this all before. I regret being caught up in all this hype and spent three hours watching this instead of doing something more constructive; like going for a long walk and contemplating how we can overcome the real power of evil that controls this planet.