Playing Devil's Advocate...

Rating: Null/10 (17 December 2003)

I got out of the midnite showing of Return of the King and said to myself "on the one hand, it is a well made movie overall..on the other hand, Peter Jackson took the term 'dramactic liberty' to excess"...I really really wanted to love this movie..I wanted it to be the best of the trilogy..I wanted to believe all the amazing reviews I've read about it...BUT I just couldn't...and heres why 1)maybe it is because I just read the book over again, but Peter Jackson deleted/added/changed way too many scenes...2)I didn't get sucked into it the way I did with the other two movies, and that may be my fault, or the fact that it ended after 3 in the morning..3)the movie seemed to end in around three spots...4)the terrible Eye of Sauron resembled more of a spotlight than the embodiment of evil...5)it was easy to see where they will add in scenes in the extended edition...some scenes just seemed to end prematurely...6)Peter Jackson changed the ending!!! The end of the quest in Mt. Doom worked so well in the books, and yet Peter Jackson changed it...I have to ask why? Why not just leave that one scene untouched?...I realize that some of these are just stupid fanboy arguments against an otherwise well done movie, and maybe it is because I just read the book and can nitpick the thing to death...the Nazgul King is amazing...and I laughed when I realized that the orc war leader is basically Sloth from "The Goonies"...but I am seeing the movie again, and maybe it will be better the second time around...but for now, instead of the "10 out of 10" that i had hoped to give it, I can only give it a 7 out of 10...