Disappointed. Wait for DVD.

Rating: 6/10 (18 December 2003)

I'm very much a fan of the books, but I feel the movie must stand on it's own. And in this case, I feel the movie didn't quite succeed.
To make a movie based on a book, the writer/director must take liberties with the story. They must cut back drastically to fit the time constraints and sometimes will add to fill in gaps or to make the story more accessible for the current audience. I've no problem with either. The movie is not the book. The movie must be judged not by how it much it supplements or is faithful to the book but on it's own merit. And knowledge of the book should not be used to gloss over problems with the movie.
My main problem with this movie is in the number of major storylines (according to the movie!) that are not sufficiently fleshed out. Some examples:
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Denethor. Ok...he's crazy...I guess. But based upon what we learn FROM THE MOVIE we haven't a clue way. Maybe there was a line by Gandolf somewhere that hinted at it, but good story-telling provides stronger revelations than another character saying why things are they way they are. And what was with his love for Boromir instead of Faramir? The movie didn't explain it to me, so I never really got it.
Faramir. We see a lot of him, and we actually are given reasons to care about him. So why doesn't the movie give us a more satisfying resolution to his story than a 1 second pan across him in a crowd with Eowyn...who also deserved a better resolution. We get 30 minutes of post-ring endings. Couldn't they get maybe 20-30 seconds? And did I miss something? When did they even meet?
Eowyn. She gives Aragorn some food at an encampment and thinks they're dating? Maybe I forgot something from TTT, but I never really saw Aragorn give her much more than the time of day, so she must be delusional to think there's something between them. And Aragorn broke up with her even though he never really liked her? Huh?
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My second problem with this movie is the ending. I blame Lucas for what I call "the Stars Wars ending". After the climax, show a group photo with everyone standing around smiling at each other without any dialog. And for greater impact, add a large mass of people who are watching! This is the cinematic equivalent to "...and they lived happily ever after". It's cheap and meaningless. It may work for Snow White and Cinderella (and even Stars Wars : A New Hope), but not for anything with more substance than that. Good storytelling doesn't resort to cheap tricks like this.
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An epic of this magnitude requires a much more satisfying ending. We became involved with a number of characters and want to know how things ended for them. In response, it appears that RotK gives us at least three Stars Wars endings (the bed, the coronation, the bar) before giving us something real. Cut the sugar-sappy Star Wars endings and jump right to the Shire and the departure of Frodo and Bilbo and it'd clean up the movie tremendously.
(Good storytelling can also choose to NOT resolve storylines...leaving it up to the viewer to ponder. For that, this movie would have ended with Frodo/Sam stranded on Mt Doom after destruction of the ring. I usually prefer endings like that, but it wouldn't work for this story.)
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30 minutes is a short period of time to give us closure on all the storylines, so use the time wisely. Maybe even cut 10 minutes out of the battle (GASP!) and resolve ALL the storylines for us.
I rate the movie 6.5/10 : 1 point off for incomplete major storylines, 1 point for cheapening the movie with multiple Star Wars endings, half a point for the whole Agent Elrond character (ala Matrix), half a point for non-imaginative Stars Wars knock-off battle scenes (including the Daredevil/Legolas acrobatics), half a point for some other miscellaneous gaffs too numerous and varied to elaborate on each.
Final conclusion: Eye-candy can't substitute for real story telling. Skip the theatrical release and wait for the Extended Edition DVD. Maybe then they'll get it right.