immensely frustrating

Rating: 4/10 (16 April 2005)

I looked forward to this film, especially after the darkening tone of The Two Towers. However, I was vastly disappointed, as character and plot were subjugated to action sequences. It's true that no one could ever bring Tolkien's works to screen in true fulfillment of their genius, but Jackson made changes that, in addition to being entirely unnecessary, hurt the meaning of the film--and the whole trilogy--immeasurably. The only reason I gave this film a halfway decent rating was that the visuals are amazing and the acting strong--it's the story that suffered.
Reducing Gimli and Legolas to comic relief was a waste of the actors' talents and was really a rather senseless move.
There were many changes in this film, some that made it work better as a movie and some that hurt it, but a few dramatically altered the tone and purpose of the story in a way that made the moments leading up to the conclusion not make sense in terms of continuity. I will never forgive Jackson for changing how the ring was destroyed. The moment in the book--when Gollum bites the ring and Frodo's finger off of the hobbit's hand and dances with glee at having his "precious" back, only to fall to his and the ring's destruction--is so poignant and beautiful, so perfect, that I cannot understand why Jackson changed it. It is that moment of joy--decreased to something one almost doesn't notice in the film--that is so beautiful. In addition, Frodo had not yet, even in his acceptance of the ring, become like Gollum, searching and fighting for it no matter what. When Gollum takes possession of the ring, Frodo's true self returns. That, too, is significant and likewise ignored in the film.
There are further manifestations of this sort of problem in the film. I guess I'm saying that what Jackson did took much of the deeper meaning out of the story, reducing it to a more simple action-adventure story. That's not what it was in print, and given the earlier films, that's not the story we were following on screen, either. The story is about something greater, deeper and more meaningful, and the third film utterly fails at conveying that.