Yes But

Rating: Null/10 (12 January 2006)

It's fantastic that someone finally succeeded in bring Tolkien to the big screen like this, and it took fantastic planning, and Jackson is deserving of every award he's received - and he should have received more.
But there comes a time when CGI gets so close to but yet so far from reality that everything looks like a cartoon animated by van Gogh. I think these movies go too far without having much of a choice.
The first part was enthralling because it was finally happening, and the Ringwraith were fantastic. The second part surprised by the emotion it invoked - it had all the flurry of a Lucas attempt at an epic but it had guts and grit too. And Jackson made his cast look earthy and human, and he introduced hormones into things that seem absent in the book(s).
And it's a fantastic conclusion to be sure, but as with Titanic, the achievement is first and foremost that it happened and that it was a success. There is no way Jackson can get enough acclaim or recognition for what he has done.
All I've got to say is I don't especially appreciate all these special effects. They come closer and closer to looking real but they will never be convincing. Serkis is amazing of course, and he should have received some sort of award. But there comes a time when the fantasy of the mind is better than trying to paint the impossible on screen.
A lot of people will laud the movie because the effects were so good; this doesn't have squat to do with the quality of the movie. Like saying James Bond's Aston Martin is cool, therefore Connery/Lazenby/Moore/Dalton/Brosnan are good actors.
No one can take away from Jackson what he did: a major achievement, a milestone in cinematic and cultural history. But I wasn't overly impressed, and in fact found myself looking at my watch wondering when it would all finally be over. Maybe I was satisfied the movie had made it and lost interest because I already knew the ending; maybe it was the plethora of CGI wizardry that had me longing for Wiley Coyote and his Roadrunner friend.
At least there no one's trying to fool you into thinking it's real.