Sweet dreams, everyone.

Rating: 3/10 (4 January 2004)

Well, it's finally over: Peter Jackson's adaptation of J. R. R. Tolkien's mediocre epic concludes with *The Return of the King*, a 3-1/2-hour test of endurance. How many times can a movie show Elijah Wood's big blue eyes welling up with tragic tears? how many times do our heroes single-handedly dispatch thousands of evil creatures apiece during big battles? how many times do we have to endure the jokes from that hairy dwarf? how many times must Howard Shore's repetitive, sappy score rise to deafening levels whenever a minor character lies in a broken heap on the battlefield? how many times must director Jackson waste his wide screen photography with gigantic close-ups of the actors (I haven't seen so many BIG HEADS since the last Academy Awards broadcast)? how many times must we withstand grand, cartoon-animated armies? . . . and how many more times must we watch plot developments that contain virtually no suspense?? (What -- did you think the Dark Lord would win? that any of the main characters of the Fellowship would actually die?)
Apparently, many MORE times, because this 3-1/2-hour trudge is but the appetizer to the main course of the "Extended Edition", New Line's continuing money-grab that will reveal perhaps a FIVE-HOUR version of this movie alone. (Taken all together, *The Lord of the Rings* -- The Extended Version -- approaches the length of 14 hours, give or take.) Well, as P. T. Barnum once observed, There's a sucker born every minute, and New Line has found the suckers, who are not only willing to pay at the movie theater, but are also only too willing to fork out exorbitant amounts for "special editions" of movies that ought to have stood on their own -- AS RELEASED. A simple standard should obtain in a movie theater: what you're seeing on the screen should be what a director wants you to see. "Extended-edition DVD's" don't count, and especially should not be taken in consideration in reviews by either professional critics or by amateur reviewers at places like IMDb. I can already hear the defenders of the films demur, "But these movies would've been too long if Jackson didn't cut them into shorter versions!" But that's precisely my point. *The Lord of the Rings* remains an unfilmable book: it's too long; it's too unwieldy. As far as an adaptation is concerned, none -- not less -- would be more.
Which is not to say that there aren't any great filmic moments in *Return of the King*: the lighting of the watch-fires along the mountain ranges is pure cinema; the entire scene with Frodo and Sam fending off a giant spider in a cobwebby cave is terrific, providing the one suspenseful stretch in the entire movie; and Gollum remains a wonderful creation, a rare successful collaboration of technology and old-fashioned creative virtues. Taken as a whole, the movie is better than, say, *The Matrix* or other expensive Hollywood blockbusters of the "action-adventure" genre. But to say so is not to say much. The occasional high points don't constitute a comprehensive whole, or make Tolkien's saga any less silly. It's a book about magic rings, wizards, Dark Lords, and dwarfs, for God's sake. In *Return of the King*, there's a scene in Minas Tirith where the citizens watch a sad parade of soldiers go by: but it's comical, because everyone looks like refugees from a Renaissance Faire. It doesn't do to inflate this material to cosmic levels. Claims that Tolkien's fantasy was the greatest book of the 20th Century truly make my head spin: what, was *Ulysses* chopped liver? What was the second greatest book -- Stephen King's *The Stand*?
Pardon my long-windedness, but the very subject inspires it. I'll wrap by lamenting that one of the better elements in the first two installments, Christopher Lee as Saruman, was a victim of the cutting room floor. Even fans of this material might agree with me that any number of the scenes with Frodo and Sam blubbering at each other would've been better replaced with a coda to the Saruman plot-line. While others may say, "Well, he'll be in the Extended-Edition version," I'm sure that will be cold comfort to Mr. Lee. At least Saruman was a villain we could sink our teeth into: in *Return*, we must instead settle for that damned Eyeball atop that tower. Granted, in this film the Eyeball has developed the power to sort of roll about, rather like a lighthouse lamp, but it's still a pretty lame villain. Here, perhaps more than anywhere, Jackson reveals the limitations of his source material. In the book, as I recall, Sauron's Eyeball was really more of a psychological entity. Grasping for any straw, Jackson has made the Eyeball a concrete reality, so that we would have SOMETHING to identify as a villain. But don't fret: Sauron's Nose will doubtless turn up in the Extended Edition. In the meantime, sweet dreams, everyone.