Not Quite Perfect

Rating: 8/10 (5 July 2007)

Do ya like 3-hour battle scenes? You'll love this flick. No, it's not really one battle, but it sure seems that way. Massive battle scene, ten minutes of landscape shots and dialogue. Massive battle scene, ten minutes of landscape shots and dialogue. Repeat. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, I just think that is what keeps it from being the perfect film that a lot of people are claiming it to be. I know I may get annihilated for actually saying anything less than praise about the Rings trilogy, but I do have a few observations in the negative column:
* These films have more sweeping"ooh, look how pretty" landscape shots than a Travel Channel documentary. A good half-hour could be trimmed from each movie right there.
* Speaking of trimming, Return of the King takes about half an hour to end... way too much epilogue. And this is after they apparently cut another whole sequence with Saruman at the shire.
* More slo-mo than John Woo - which is saying a lot
* Why is it orcs and other baddies will fall with one tap of the sword, but the films major characters can run through entire armies without getting the slightest injury?
* There's an awful lot of killing of innocent animals here. Those oliphaunts and such are just enslaved!
* A lot of people criticize the newer Star Wars films for being nothing but a collection of digital effects. Return of the King is just as guilty as any, with a lot of obvious blue/green screen scenes, and whole battles composed of CGI. I have no problem with that, just want the critics to realize their precious LOTR is just as guilty.
* Suddenly raising up an army of the dead, with thousands of soldiers who can't be killed, is a total cop-out. You've suddenly negated all the fighting and deaths the mortals have done. Why didn't someone mention summoning these armies back in the first film!?
* The Gollum/Frodo ending was a bit anti-climactic, in my humble opinion.
Okay that's enough. Don't get me wrong, I really do like these films, and Return of the King was a good finale. The battles were cool, the acting great across the board, the effects, the music, etc for the most part amazing. As a whole it works pretty well. But I don't think there is a best film in the series. None of them work without the others. But again, that's not a bad thing.
I didn't really intend for this review to sound negative. I liked it...really. But every other review in the world is all praise for all the great things about it, so I thought I'd bring up a couple from the "con" side.