How can it be #4?

Rating: 7/10 (21 July 2006)

I don't think that without the book, this series could have been this popular. The third and final episode of LoTR is massive, well done and entertains without doubt, but I really don't think it deserves to be dubbed one of the greatest movies of all time, even though it makes a similar effort.
For starters, there is no great story involved and the subplots aren't really interesting. The progression of events is the same as in the second part and really not very different. Huge armies clashing with nothing really new involved in the battles, constitutes 60% of the movie. The movie only really gets interesting during the very end but thats something you have to wait over 2 hours for. The progression and storyline themselves are highly predictable and there are no real twists which occur besides the predictable one in the end, which is quickly brushed aside and progression, once again returning to normal.
I really wanted to see Sauron as a fighting form in part 3. He simply remained as the eye and made no great appearance, was eventually defeated with no effort. Instead, they just throw in some random general who makes rare appearances, does nothing to intimidate and gets killed easily. That was a huge disappointment. You'd think that some special effects improvements had been made in part-3 but thats only partially achieved. Obviously, they ran into budget constraints and cut back on the CGI budget. While the overall CGI effort was pretty good, it is certainly not the best in the world.
Although LoTR was a mammoth effort and I really can't suggest anything to polish it further, it was really just that from the very start and is far from brilliant. The good thing is the experience that the director would gain from this project to go on and direct masterpieces like King Kong.