Eisenstein for our time

Rating: 10/10 (20 December 2003)

The real competition for Lord of the Rings is not, say, Harry Potter or even Titanic or Gone with the Wind, but the great epic films of the likes of Kurosawa or Eisenstein. It is in fact Eisenstein who I keep coming back to in trying to think of someone who so completely envisioned the epic on such a grand scale that had never been seen before. This is, by far, the best of the three Ring movies and it lets you know just how much better it is going to be in its very first scenes as Smeagol first encounters the ring in his own hobbit past. There will no doubt be all the award nominations for best film, best direction & everything technical under the sun, but the two actors who really deserve nominations for this film are Sean Astin & Andy Serkis.