Perhaps the failing is mine...

Rating: Null/10 (25 December 2003)

I am but a crude man of simple tastes, I suppose. Perhaps I am just not sophisticated enough to enjoy the subtleties and nuances of a cinematic tour de force such as Return of the King. But ironically I think I didn't care that much for the movie precisely because I thought the story was too simple. Spoilers herein. I never felt surprised by anything that happened in the plot. In the climactic scene when Frodo stands on the precipice of his ultimate objective, I kind of figured he'd cave in and take the ring for himself. Well whaddayaknow, that's just what he did. And it didn't take too much guessing to figure Gollum would be there for a final showdown, either. And I'm not the type of person who normally finds stories predictable. I usually surrender myself completely to the story and wait for it to be revealed. So for me to figure out the plot before it unfolds was my indication that I was getting bored. See, I was really sick of Frodo long before that point. And letting go of the ring was his last chance to surprise me, to make me like him. And he blew it big time, man, he failed utterly just when it counted the most. Sam saved his bacon so many times, and the first seventy-six times it was cool, but I guess by the seventy-seventh I was just like okay, I've seen this before. Also, the battle of Gondor to me played out in too similar a fashion to the battle of Helmsdeep, which itself I thought got a little repetitive after a while -- well, they've got us. Or have they? Aha! And then by a great show of valor and courage and ferocity they somehow battle back against impossible odds. That exact same sort of scenario just seemed to play out over and over and over again until finally no matter what calamity seemed sure to win out over the good guys I couldn't buy into it because I knew from past experience that the author wouldn't let the evil triumph no matter what. It was like watching VH1 Behind the Music for 3 1/2 hours. There are a whole lot of examples I could cite, but I don't think it would be necessary. Anyway, the other thing that kind of killed it for me was the approximately sixteen times the movie ended without actually ending. There are certain cinematic cues that signal the end of a movie, and I feel that a movie can reasonably get away with tricking the audience into thinking the movie is over once, and only if there is some sort of huge twist. So I got a little impatient over that. I knew going in that it was a long movie, but no kidding, by the end of the movie I couldn't remember the beginning of the movie. That's pretty long. I can't even imagine all the extra scenes they left out. There is one other thing that is kind of hard to explain. It's when a character is being singled out from the other characters in the scene by having a closeup during an important moment, and then that character's expression changes to indicate that something important and unexpected has just happened. That occurs in this movie, particularly during the long, long epilogue, way too many times. I respect that Tolkein singlehandedly invented a new and important literary genre, as well as the love and attention with which he crafts both settings and dialogue. In this his work is unassailable. But I didn't think the story itself was all that spellbinding. In the end, I guess I simply proved unworthy of this landmark epic.