A second look after 5 years.

Rating: 10/10 (20 December 2003)

In this space five years ago, I wrote a mostly negative review about how I thought the movie was slow-paced, especially towards the end. I watched the film again the other day, and I wanted to offer my thoughts on it.
What can I say? I am a Peter Jackson fan again. Yes, there are sometimes when you get impatient with this film. But the extended cut is four hours of pure exhilaration. I also found that it helps to give yourself an intermission with this film (after Pellenor Fields was when I took mine). Sucking on garbage for many years made me long for true art and entertainment. Return of the King is a crowning achievement to a classic movie franchise.
This movie may be in a sense too good. I forgot that about Peter Jackson, he is one of those directors who makes movies that blow you out of your seat. Instead of the special effects overwhelming the plot in this movie, everything overwhelms the viewer. It's overdone. It's meant to be overdone. The result is amazing.
In retrospect, Lord of the Rings never caught on as a pop-culture phenomenon the way Star Wars did. It exists instead as a modern throwback to such epic spectacles as Ben-Hur or Laurence of Arabia. Rarefied air indeed, but may have been the dying gasp of epic film making. People just don't go to see 3 hour movies anymore, and gone are the days when special effects will drive people to see movies. All crap and the occasionally good art-house or foreign flick. Ah, well.