almost perfect

Rating: 10/10 (20 December 2003)

Spoiler free review
I have read many reviews, at least 80 in the last two days and my expectations which were already high, even rose after doing that. Now that I have seen the film I have to admit that it was one of the best I have seen over the past few years. I think this film was equal to the fellowship of the ring and superior to the two towers. It was less ill-paced than TTT and it had the same warmth as FOTR. The only thing that annoyed me a little bit were the omissions made but I look forward to the EE and if the missing scenes appear there it will probably be better than the first instalment.
I agree with most of the reviewers on this site, but there are some nitpickers and naysayers I want to ask a question. If you write that you found the first two instalments were crap why do you go to the movie theatre and watch the third too which you clearly knew would go in the same direction as the others did? And why do you watch it only one or two days after the release, witch means that you must have reserved the tickets at least a month before? I think I can give you the answer by myself. You are fans of the films but you just can't confess it! Maybe you have to increase you self-esteem by smashing down the movies which are acclaimed by the biggest part of the audience or by showing you nonconformity (which seems to be very cool and a duty nowadays). Or may be the lord of the rings just isn't enough `sophisticated' for cognitive capacity and you don't want to show in front of your friends that you liked it. It would not fit to your image. At any rate if you only go to the cinema to see and maybe write down in which scenes you could spot the blue boxes and some lights of the studio lamps in the eyes of the actors or something like that and for that reason try to make this movie look ridiculous then you can do that but don't come here to complain if you have nothing to say about the real quality of the film or how it affected you. I think Peter Jackson and the whole staff did their best to bring Middle Earth to life on the big screen and if the CGI doesn't look appropriate in every scene it's only because of the technical limits and we cannot reproach him for that. This books are fantasy. They do not have the ambition to be very sophisticated. I think one can say that they are the greatest achievement in fantasy literature but Tolkien didn't have the intention to place them among Immanuel Kant or Friedrich Nietzsche or even Aristotle in the `deepest books in history hall of fame'. He wrote the books with the single purpose of escapism and because he wanted to tell a complex and beautiful story which he found, didn't exist at that time. The same is with the films. If they are to childish for some viewers then they should watch Citizen Kane (which is my favourite film of all time) or Satyricon, and leave Jackson's trilogy aside. He made it for the fans (and maybe for his wallet to ;-)) and we should be thankful that it was realised by someone who was capable to catch the spirit of Tolkien quite good. So what I actually wanted to say is go to see the movie, enjoy it and decide for yourself if you like it or not. If yes, you can be very lucky about this Christmas gift if not, don't mind and have a nice Christmas time as well but do not misuse this forum for egoistic reasons!
My rating (9/10)