Lord of the movie cliché

Rating: 1/10 (10 July 2004)

To say that this movie is overblown pap is an understatement. Like its predecessors, this flick employs just about every movie cliché in cinema history like long, long death scenes; fake death scenes (how many times did Freddo die, only to our "surprise" he's really not dead at all!); "a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do" scenes, in fact what with the clip-clop galloping of horses everywhere I thought it had strayed into a Western. "Ride like the wind" type comments abound. The mad bad king who dies a horrible death coz he's so mad and bad. The cute little Hobbits we're all supposed to cheer for. And even a Darth Vader type chief villain!Coupled with a script that was so lame, the better actors were really pushing themselves to the limit trying to make the lines sound at least half original. In fact, the only interesting characters in this enermous exercise in money-grabbing movie cynicism were the villains! The orcs at least had character.
Not surprising then that the movie relies upon the gollum to sell it.
In years to come, this lumbering saga of over-hyped over produced trash will be not be regarded in the same way Star Wars is but in the same way Titanic is.... bit of an embarrassment.