A great big mess of a movie.

Rating: Null/10 (7 January 2004)

*SPOILERS*- but, if you aint seen it by now, chances are spoilers wont really matter to you, but anyway........
Woooobooy! I finally got my pound of flesh delivered today by going to see the final installment of Fellowship of the Ring. As expected, the film delivered bigtime on the great battle sequences and cinematography, hoorah! And, as somewhat expected, everything else about the movie was dreadful.
Where to start, where to start! The first 30-45 minutes plods along at a horribly dull pace. First, we are given a superfluous flashback to the origins of Gollum. This must have just been something for the fans of the books, because I cant see any reason cinematically why it was neccesary for the movie. The second film pretty well established that Gollum is a twisted, psychopath obsessed with the Ring. There really was no need for the exposition, it did little for the plot in the end. Or maybe Andy Serkis wanted a chance to mug it up for the camera. Who knows, its a mystery right up there with who shot Kennedy.
After this lackluster intro, the film cathes everyone up to speed on where our heroes were left off from the first film. Thus, the next 30 minutes are much sound and fury signifying nothing- basically battle plan talk and speechifying, and slow motion camera work, and dreary violins in the background and overly sentimental moments contrived by Jackson. Geez, even though I never really felt either of the two previous Fellowship films were that well done, I was never outright bored with any of the movies til this one. The pacing that had been at least tenuously balanced in the first two films falls apart by the third installment. Its like watching something in the midst of its death throws- 5 to ten mintues of herky jerky action, then long periods of somnulence and dormancy.
And so Jackson establishes the pace for the duration of the film. Moments of action where the plot moves forward( Pippin and the bowling ball, Pippin and Gandalf going to Gondor,), then cutting back to scenes where the plot absolutely stagnates(scenes of speechifying, battle planning , and blank stares). These scenens are usually marked by 'otherwordly' choral music, violins in the background, and god help me, the slow motion camera. Someone should ban Jackson from *ever* using slow motion again. But I cant blame the man, he needed something that signalled to the audience 'look, this is the part where you feel sad!' or 'look, this is part where you feel happy!'. Since the screenplay wasn't strong enough to indicate this on its own( and since Jackson really is more a visual, and less emotionally in touch director), the solution to this was: milk the slow motion camera for all its worth! Hoorah!
But, its decisions like this that absolutely wreck the movie. Like its predecessors, this film was not much in the subtlety department. Everything about the movie is big and boisterous. There are never any moments of quiet dignity or real introspection. Maybe this isnt the genre of movie to look for things of that nature, but still, everything emotional is hammed up almost to the point of ridiculousness. Case in point, is there a law in New Zealand or Australia that people cant die quickly? This is the second '3rd' movie of the year where a major character takes exceedingly long to die. Note to directors- this is not the way to make a character memorable, it just annoys the audience and ruins the suspension of disbelief. Can anyone in the film ever just get on with it without delivering a soliloquy? Can Legolas every just say something without it being a sonnet, or useless for that matter? Where is the real, true emotion?
Actually, it does exist in some instances. Although the exchanges between Sam and Frodo are usually the worst offendors when it comes to milking the sentimentalist rag dry, some of them were actually quite effective and stirring this time around. Namely the scene on the mountain as Sam offers a piggy back service. Finally, a scene with true emotion that was not undercut by the sappy score. Also, I thought most of the battle sequences were pretty arousing, not just for the prospect of seeing carnage on screen, but some of the pre-fight pep talks were stirring. And there is just something about seeing men on horseback charging thats invigorating. To me anyway.
The biggest blunder to me seems that the great battle sequence is rendered a bit anti-climactic. Maybe its the fault of the book, but after seeing 20 or so minutes of great action, the battle ends and there is still an hour to go! And the last bit of it features the characters who, lets face it, arent that dynamic on their own. Couldnt Jackson have, say, instead of showing Gollum's past, made it so that the evil-dead army took care of the city, while the other human troops marched on Mordor? Yes, it is a rather Lucasian device, but as the previous film showed, it works to great effect to see numerous battles occur and resolve at once. You dont serve the steak and dessert and then save the salad for last, after all.
And speaking of saving the salad for last- oy, if you are going to have a 30 minute epilogue, at least have the decency to include an intermission. What happened to the lost art of the intermission? Are the movie companies scared you wont finish the film? I dont see why it should matter, seeing as they already have your money, but whatever. All I know is that by the time Aragon started to speechify at the end of the final, final battle, I was damn ready to go.

All in all, again, like its predecessors, the film is worth seeing for the cinematography and for the action sequences, but you have to wade through cold treacle before you get to these sequences, so be warned. I rank the trilogy as the best film being Two Towers, then Fellowship, and lastly Return of the King, which was painfully slow, sentimental to the point of annoyance, and felt like a big disjointed mess. In the sense that, alot of what occured in the film seemed to just 'happen' but not be especially related to anything that was occuring elsewhere.
Kudos to Jackon for attempting to film the unfilmable and on his new status a 9-figure millionare. Kudos to everyone involved, and thank god another so-so trilogy is over, only one more left.
A.N.