I Feel Guilty for Being So UNIMPRESSED (small spoiler)

Rating: 5/10 (18 January 2004)

First of all, I do not consider myself one of those pompous "I've seen 30,000 films, and I know it all" reviewers, because I haven't, nor I don't. I went into this movie with the expectation of seeing the 4th greatest movie ever made (since that's were it currently ranks on IMDB)... perhaps that was my mistake.
Never having read the books, NOR seeing the first two movies in the trilogy, I really don't think it should have been so EASY to guess what was coming up plotwise, as I did in 80% of the movie. I am not a screenwriter, so in a movie as epic as this, I really should not have been able to finish sentences that the characters were about to speak as well. And am I the only one who thought some of these "amazing" special effects were downright cheesy?
*********************** SPOILER *************************************** Hobbits lying unconscious, surrounded by lava. Hmmmm. I wonder when their comrades are going to ride the eagles and carry them to safety... oh, there they are. What really made me roll my eyes (which I did A LOT, considering this movie was over 3 hours), is the effect of the eagle picking up the hobbits. This scene reminded me of Dorothy being carried away by winged monkeys. Over 60 years of movie-making later, and this still looked totally fake. ***********************************************************************
Perhaps it would have been better if I had seen the previous two movies? No. It wasn't hard to figure out what was going on, which may or may not be a credit towards the movie.
5 out of 10