Thank Heavens It's Over.

Rating: 5/10 (29 September 2008)

After the first Ipcress-like mind-numbingly boring episode, aka 'The Fellowship', I swore I would never watch another. But them blighters on the telly tricked me. They caught me off-guard.
So; to the exquisite delight of the late Mr Tolkien's rabid fan-club, I can confirm that the third instalment is just as good as the first. Which - to those of us who live in the real world instead of some hallucinogenic phantasmagoria of middle-earth - means it's as flatulent, turgid and boring as the master clearly intended it to be.
Same Stuff, different movie. Endless partings, endless greetings, endless wars, long, lingering stares of defiance, dreading, dismay, what-the-hell. It uses-up celluloid; that's the main thing. And gives v-e-r-y shallow people with s-h-o-r-t attention spans, the impression that they are watching something truly e-p-i-c.
Heavens-to-Betsy that final sequence must test the stamina of Gods. Will they get the ring up the hill to that erupting volcano? Will the goodies beat the baddies. Will rational viewers fall asleep before they find out? Now that's the real test and question. We hear a pre-battle speech so blatantly ripped-off from Shakespeare, that the Bard himself might rise-up and sue for plagiarism. We see those strange midgets endlessly climbing,climbing, climbing. How tired they are, how weary; I know just how they feel. The scene cuts and cuts again so much that I wonder if I'm not watching and mixing two separate movies. A big spider appears, but to no particular purpose than to fill-in yet another boring blank with bogus drama and hand-wringing anguish.
But what's this? Halfway up the volcano there's a door! How very thoughtful of the special-effects department. Pity the budget didn't extend to an elevator. And curiously, despite the fact that lava is erupting several hundred feet above, when they walk inside, said lava is now sitting passively several hundred feet below. No explanation: non needed. The 'Tolkeens' will accept the anomaly without question.
Surely the most preposterous anti-climax of all time is the scene in which the bald bug-eyed midget has jumped onto the invisible bug-eyed midget. We see this preposterous CGI performing a sort of airborne one-man-dance like Master Yoda orgasmically levitating in his underpants. May the farce be with you. It's the first truly entertaining scene I have witnessed in the whole cinematic tarpit, and it has me in stitches. What happens next? I lost track. The big eye-shaped thing at the top of the tower falls down because the tower collapses. Then the volcano erupts big-time.
But, no worries. This is Tolkien. The good midgets are immortal. It simply offers prelude to yet another long, tearful anguish episode, followed by yet another long, tearful, and smiling re-union episode. The credits were still rolling even after I'd had my dinner.
Joy to the many tragic, deluded fans. Thank heavens Sigourney Weaver isn't in it. It's over. We're done. It's safe to put the telly back on.