Not Bad

Rating: Null/10 (9 January 2002)

Much has been written by others about Lord of the Rings. As a rapidly approaching old foggy, I am hard to please. Was this a good movie? A great movie? It is hard to call this a great movie. Good, yes. Most impressive from my point of view was the stunning visuals, which hardly let up throughout. Moria was truly breathtaking and I could see a whole movie built around just that set alone.
Otherwise, I am seldom satisfied with movie story lines and character development anymore, and this film was no acception. Frodo was cute, but uninteresting. Bilbo reminded me a little of Dudley Moore somehow. Why, I don't know. The other characters worked fairly well and Gandalf was the star. But like most sci-fi or fantasy films, directors are too afraid to bore people with dialogue. What they don't realize is that if the dialogue was truly inventive, people would not be bored by it. But unfortunately, fantasy films like this one always have grand, universal themes, and that seems to make for uninteresting dialogue. Does it have to? No, but it always does.
As I was watching Lord of the Rings, I kept flashing back to "The Wizard of Oz" because of similarities in the story line. Why don't they remake "The Wizard of Oz" with today's special effects? That would be worth seeing. As for "Lord of the Rings", I look forward to the next movie in the series, but doubt that it will captivate me like the orignal "Wizard of Oz" did. You have to look back a long ways in order to see the rut that Hollywood has fallen into with this genre. "Lord of the RIngs" is better than most, but a breakthrough film its not.