Best of the 3, but still very average and way too long

Rating: 1/10 (12 July 2004)

I have now put myself through the sometimes enjoyable, but mostly painful experience of watching these three movies. I have to say I do think the 3rd one was the best, but lets be honest, it didn't have much competition.

One thing is for sure, this film and the trilogy as a whole is easily the most overrated event in history. Many films should be above this effort, in the top250.
The problems:
The plot, for starters, not only did it not make any sense, it was basically after 9 hours about destroying a ring and fighting a couple of battles. All the meaningless subplots and political gesturing really didn't add to the film.
The characters weren't fleshed out at all, even after 9 hours. Could you really mention much about any of the many characters? As a result most of the time I couldn't care less about who was doing what and why.
For a film, to be a classic, surely it must have some surprises or must be original in some way and perhaps more importantly stir the juices of our soul. All we had were some very good special FX, and some nice New Zealand scenery. The filming was very much join-the-dots stuff, nothing novel or clever it the way it was shown to the viewer. Do we really need to here the word `precious' again and again, do we really need to see yet another slow motion close-up of Frodo's face. All of this made the film and films over long and lacking in any substance.