you're either for us or with the orcs...

Rating: Null/10 (23 April 2004)

Adding to the 2000+ reviews here may seem a bit redundant, but I've taken a vow to process every film I see. Hopefully people can look at other films I've seen and enjoyed and take cues from some of the lesser known ones.
Coming clean, as a 12-year old boy, I tried reading 'The Hobbit,' a couple of times actually, and just seem to lack the D&D in my DNA to make it past 50 pages.
I have now seen all three of these films, and by far preferred the first, then this, and lastly the second film. Much of the character development comes in the first installment, and more small scale skirmishes happen there as well (hiding under logs away from roving bands of orcs is a lot more terrifying than CGI blobs bobbing away on the screen.) Plus there was genuine espirt du corps as the ragtag team came together.
As a popcorn movie/lunch box delivery system this is a fine product. Certainly much effort was put forth, and seeing this on the big screen would be well worth it. Ideally, seeing it with a better sound system (or fresher print?) than what the Milpitas Supersaver Cinemas offered. Many times I just could not make out what was said (I verified my friend had a similar problem afterwards.) I'm not reading many, if any, other comments regarding that here, so I *assume* it was just our problem.
But it was a big one.
As for the story itself, it is hard for me to see it in pure fantasy isolation. Just as in The Two Towers I thought about suicide bombers, here I was drawn towards more general thoughts about war. There did seem to be a leit motif suggesting that in war everyone needs to be united against the common evil. Then can be no doubters, no deserters, and one must call for all the help one can.
No matter how many repeated scenes of fires atop mountains it takes. Were there no parity checks back then, or did an attacker just have to send out a scouting party to take one in the chain out, and thus isolate a kingdom for the killing??
Back to that leit motif, as a result the amnesty army was fascinating here, and pivotal in winning the war. The ghoul-green graphics for that army seem to suggest the NetApp servers were running out of disk space in comparison to earlier critters and castles.
Again small scale battles work best, I'm hard pressed to remember much about the march of 'oliphaunts' (except I strongly hoped for the humor of Legolas knocking out many a la dominoes by tipping one to its side). However the details of the spider cave, with its classic horror manipulation (we see what Frodo does not) were quite memorable and suspenseful. The Denethor subplot was also interesting...again it underscored the foul fate of those who do not entirely join the cause.
Samwise, or should I say Samwise-wise, the film does well, Sean Astin did a great job. But other characters here were disappointingly going through the [e]motions set up from previous episodes. Notably Aragorn and Gandalf. The romance of the former that was built to such smoldering before, it pretty much flames out here. Meanwhile, Gandalf has preciousssss little interaction with characters, although there was some with Pippin and the "Death is just another path" speech.
As a charismatic agnostic I don't believe that, any more than I believe there will be a fourth chapter to this trilogy. This is the end...and that is what makes the carnage that flies by (or crawls by in sloooow-mo) seem all the more senseless to me. I don't think I was supposed to identify with the men of the mountain, but...
Well if I lack the belief, or faith, in such an obvious good-versus-evil fight, I have greater concern about less clearcut battles here on top earth. After the film, I half joked with my friend that I hoped the inevitable DVD dynamo would include an Orc's eye-view of the war.
One last reflection here. Despite obvious complaints about the repeat curtain calls at the end of this film, editing all three movies must have been an incredible task. Living in a rushed society where film-lengths in general are diminishing, and we get Idiot's guides to Idiot's guides, clearly tons of dialog, grimaces and maybe even one shot of a fire atop a mountain must have fallen before the mighty sword of the fellowship of the editors. Interesting that each installment had a different set of editors.
7/10 6/10 + 1/10 for the sheer spectacle of it all