A good, solid story

Rating: Null/10 (3 December 2004)

I have read through many of the comments on this topic, from a sense of psychological curiosity as much as from a real desire to know what other people thought of the film. Having seen the three movies a few times, the first two in Extended Edition form, the third only in the released form, I have of course a much broader opinion than I did at the end of the Fellowship of the Ring.
Firstly, I find the movie itself decently made, with a couple of sparks of brilliance. While I disagree with many people on Elijah Wood, who I think could have done a better job (mind you, the expectations I had from Mr. Wood were proportional with the importance of the part he played - which is the main part), the cast in general was well chosen and I do approve on the choice of Viggo Mortensen rather than Steward Townsend to play the part of Aragorn.
I read that a lot of people disagree with the movie these days and I am not sure whether they do this because it's "fashionable" to be a rebel in the crowd or because they genuinely disliked the movie as much as they said they did. I find it for instance incredibly difficult to believe that they really could dislike the special effects in the movie. In the end, they were extremely well integrated in the movie and as opposed to the Mummy or the Mummy Returns, they were not overstressed and not so obviously fake.
I agree that a couple of scenes were overdone, and the person in charge of those I thought was Orlando Bloom, who, despite the perfect way in which he was made to look Elven, did not act too Elven to my mind. His performance was, I thought, very fake and his good looks can't save him from that. On the other side of the acting are clearly Ian Holm, Ian McKellan, Sean Astin and Viggo Mortensen. If Boromir had been shown more, I would have placed Sean Bean in that list more.
The movie began in a rustic, very peaceful manner, like the hobbit land is supposed to be and I found that very relaxing and gripping at the same time, because all the while you feel the menace of the Ring, due to Howard Shore's masterpiece, but then it turned into a more gripping and action-filled story mainly due to the appearance of the two sides of villains - Saruman's "filth" and the Nazgûl. There is nothing wrong with having a rather sedated pace at the beginning of the movie, as long as the focus is kept on the purpose of the movie, which it was. For viewers who had expected blood and gore from the first movie, I am glad Tolkien disappointed you - as a fighter in the War he was utterly against violence when that could be avoided, which translates into two great massacres presented in the Lord of the Rings, but nothing more.
In my mind, this is not what one would call the most significant movie in the history of cinema. Yet Peter Jackson did a very good job in translating the books (which I did read, for those curious about it, and which I did like) into movies. The "essence" of Tolkien, as another viewer put it, is in my mind captured very well in all three movies, with the exception of the character of Faramir, which is slightly off-course. On the whole, I will give the movie a 9/10, because of the downsides I talked about earlier.