A worthy final to a great movie-conversion of an epic story

Rating: 10/10 (19 December 2003)

I got to see this third and final movie of the triology about the Ring at the premiere day, thanks to my job connections as a computer technician (what company would show this movie to its customers if the customers weren't geeks?). After sitting through 2 hours of presentation of Netware 6.5 (it was quite fun actually, the speaker made fun of everything), the movie was rolled up, without those annoying commercials that you get if you go to a regular session (that you have to PAY for, on top of that!).
Behind me sat this corpulent middle-aged man who was complaining about EVERYthing and thought he knew better than Peter Jackson how a book should be converted into a movie. That mans idea was that all the details from the books should be displayed in the movie and everything should happen exactly the way that the books describe it, so that the book becomes the script in a way.
Isn't that stupid? Some things just can't be brought from paper to silver screen. Take thoughts, for example. There are some TV series and B-movies out there where thoughts are whispered by the actor who thinks them, as the screen shows the actor walking back and forth, thus brining you the impression that he is really pondering something that's on his mind.
I find that Peter Jackson has done a great job in converting the last book of the triology to movie, although it becomes a bit too much at 3 hours and 20 minutes. He cut 5 chapters from the end of the second movie (compared to the books), and those 5 chapters are now being told in movie number three. I warn you: Do NOT get a Coke or anything that contains caffeine, because half-way through, you will start wanting to go to the restrooms, and there's still a full movies worth of film left to watch!
I won't give away the story details for all you people who haven't read the books, but I will say that I'm glad that the movie shows a LOT of celebration & epilogue at the end (I sincerely hope you could guess the ending would be happy in this mother-of-all-fairytales!), just like in the books.