A journey that will always be remembered.

Rating: 10/10 (19 December 2010)

Having carried the burden of guiltily concealing a debt to Peter Jackson's widely known and acclaimed trilogy, only now do I realise I can truly call myself a film fan. Calling it outstanding, brilliant, perfect, would simply being echoing past recognition, which you already know of.
Up until the point of watching I was convinced the likes of other trilogies (such as the repetition dodging Toy Story and Star Wars) would always out do what I used see as a medieval fantasy filled with mythical creatures. Yet there's something incredibly humane about LOTR as a whole, the pointy ears and hairy feet may dismiss such an idea but when the soundtrack swells (as does your heart) you get, to quote the narrator of Fight Club: Lost in oblivion.
Before watching I didn't know my elf from my hobbit, now I know my Gollum from my Gandalf, my Gondor from my Mordor. Back in The Two Towers our hairy footed friends had grudgingly united with Gollum who continues to offer his schizophrenic 'assistance' of taking Sam and Frodo to an unknown entrance that will let them pass into Mordor unnoticed; while the rest of the divided fellowship meet up at Isengard in the aftermath of the Ents' Greenpeace revolt â€“ which compared to the also CG rendered but vastly epic battles in Return of the King, was just a taster.
The effects themselves clearly cusp the 3D phenomenon, that was breached several years too late not that it doesn't spell in-your-face politely either. They still remain cinematically impressive, particularly when the heat of the battle flourishes fresh new soundtrack scores on such a vast scale. My only criticism is (sounding like a severe case of fanboyism here) that whole film goes so damn fast, even though it clocks in at the three hour mark; and that's coming from someone who had little prior knowledge beforehand.
Why? Because it's a journey. Never in my pitiful viewing history have I felt more transported to a different world so fluently, flawlessly, fixatedly. A world that could blister your eyes with tears and have your heart wrenching new-fangled rewards it didn't know existed. Not in the sense of being such a bum-numbing saga, but that it's a film that couldn't feel any less of a film, and it will be revisited again and again and again.