LOTR III - A great unfinished work

Rating: 3/10 (2 March 2006)

I loved & adored the Fellowship and Two Towers. I repeat. They are my top favourite films of all time, even above Star Wars & Blade Runner. These films had furious pace, plot unity, the characters had gravitas, the dialogue had consequence, the language was masterful and elegant, the music either beautifully dominated the scenes or perfectly underscored them with gracious subtlety.
Return of the King was a bitter disappointment and a terrible movie. Gandalf "the White", seems no longer the wizard who defeated the Moria balrog! The Witch King of Angmar, whom Aragorn had stood against on Weathertop seemingly without much effort, and a few swings of this torch, seemed about to kick Gandalf into the dirt and make him eat it. The Orc general was pathetic as a disabled elephant-man. Most of the dialogues are utterly disjointed; the voices of the actors who had acted so brilliantly in the previous movies had no weight. I also felt what they were saying was pointless. Take the scene in which Pippin finds Merry on the Pelennor Fields - one says "I found you", the other replies "yes, I knew you would". How does that advance the plot at all?! The Black Lieutenant was a misguided attempt at comic relief at a crucial juncture of the film, when all seems despair. Some of the shots in Mordor were dubious - the sky behind the hobbit scenes a light grey, whereas as viewed from Gondor the sky is black!! What's the deal about Sauron becoming a light-house?! The soldiers of Minas Tirith are a bunch of incompetent poster-boys I wouldn't trust to defend against a poodle. What are the women and children doing still in the city after the orc armies have broken in?! Pippin seems to be able to run all the way from the Citadel to the lowest city level and back, twice, just to ask Gandalf to help him save Faramir. The Saruman scene was dreadful and the dialogue repetitive. The musical score had no soul, no uniqueness: it could have been the music in a 100 other films (and probably will be). The opening scene was pointless, badly acted, not believable, and served no other purpose other than delaying the beginning. What was the point of that Indiana Jones-Temple-of-Doom-skull avalanche in the mountain of the ghost army? The falling in love between Eowyn and Faramir is completely unsubstantiated and not believable. Alas, I could go on and on.
I just don't understand people who liked it. Sure, it had superb CGI action, but frankly that's all. I suspect it appealed to Independence Day/ Alien vs Predator all-action-no-brains Jerry Bruckheimer fans.
I do understand Peter Jackson - he was tired after working so, so hard, so many years on this single project. He just let his focus slip on the last straight-line (editing it, while already preparing for King Kong). A great pity. For me the trilogy is unfinished. In my opinion it could benefit from a complete re-editing but I doubt it will ever happen because of its Oscars. The first two should have been so recompensed - this one doesn't deserve being shown in a Tijuana whore-house as side-entertainment.