Frustrating

Rating: Null/10 (18 December 2003)

(SPOILERS AHEAD)
I went in with high hopes. They weren't like "The Phantom Menace" or "Attack of the Clones;" perhaps they were more along the lines of "The Matrix: Reloaded." I mean, I qualified ROTK because I was positive that the third film in a trilogy with two other films as enthralling and entertaining as TTT and FOTR would be a letdown, not to mention the hyping and the fact that it's all over with no more story to be told. Perhaps I didn't qualify enough. I mean, with "Return of the Jedi," "Back the Future III," "Batman Forever" as the list continues on, there was precedent set that ROTK would be a weaker film... and perhaps even an abomination (of course, I couldn't believe Jackson would be so haphazard as that). Still, hopes were high.
To start, I viewed Andy Serkis playing Smeagol before the fall and deigned the performance to be lackluster. After Deagol fell from the boat when the fish pulled him along underwater, the entire sequence looked phony. Of course, they inter-cut with the footage from FOTR of the hand digging out The Ring. Also, the relationship between the two brothers seemed more as a pair of lovers and the acting was almost surreal. Watching the denigration of Smeagol into Gollum was mildly informative, but unnecessary - and I love Smeagol - but watching close-ups of him eating a fish (more on the editors' bizarre eating fetish later) and losing teeth and hair and all did more to alienate him rather than endear. Perhaps that were the point. I was under the impression, though, that the audience would be led to a false sense of security (as Frodo felt) to heighten drama at the later betrayal became a missed moment by my count.
Moving on, it seemed that the lighting was different and the makeup was overdone in several cases - Merry, Pippin, Gandalf, among others. Certain backdrops looked rendered and many sets looked exactly like; I imagined at one point that a crewman was just off-camera eating a ham sandwich from craft services during the earliest Osgiliath battle sequence.
Headache inducing edits during the first half-hour reminded me more of the film "Go" than a grand, sprawling epic. My take was that, yes, we hit the ground running and gave no back story, save the Smeagol sequence, and that works, but the editing needs to quickly acclimate the audience, with concise and clear images and themes. Instead, the edits seemed to be half-a-beat ahead or behind at a given moment.
Back to chewing on the initial Osgiliath battle, it and the entire Isengard sequence seemed a mish-mash of poor editing decisions, unpolished production, rushed storytelling and weak dialogue and acting. At one point, I was thinking, "What in hell is happening? I see there's a battle but I'm seeing an over-the-shoulder shot of an orc on a studio set that is poorly lit."
Treebeard's conversation with Gandalf bored me because it seemed to just play like one of Velma's re-caps at the end of a Scooby-Doo episode. The removal of Saruman didn't bother as much as the fact that we saw Isengard without any reason. To be honest, the film could have started with Merry, Pippin and the lot back in Edoras having a brief powwow with Eowyn and it would have sufficed.
Now, about the entire Orb thing, I forget what it's called and I know that it was dangerous, but the feeling was never conveyed, although we were told so. It would have been better to show the conversation between Sauron and Pippin and then Aragorn and Sauron when he picked it up rather than relying on Billy Boyd to writhe in "agony" while the thing glowed. Instead it was briefly mentioned but never explored.
While I'm on the subject, the virtually unused ubervillain Sauron never did show his might. The Ring was dangerous. The wraiths were dangerous. The Goblin King was dangerous. Saruman was dangerous. Shelob was dangerous. The Orcs and Uruk-Hai were dangerous. Hell, even Smeagol proved dangerous, but Sauron remained a kind of chairman of the board who never really acted, never displayed any true show of force. I think this diminished his actual threat. Had we seen him accomplish something or generate something or do more than act as a glorified searchlight I would have been impressed. Instead, I'm left feeling that he wasn't all that powerful. I mean, a good halogen lamp is as powerful as Sauron.
Quickly, about the editor's fascination with poor table manners, what was with the close up shots of Gollum/Smeagol eating and then the sequence where Denethor was eating while Pippin sang and the armies marched. Perhaps I missed the subtler meaning - I may pick it up with future viewings - but it seemed a bit gratuitous.
Another thing: Hollywood moments are fine in Hollywood productions. This film was supposed to be less Hollywood and more "raw," though. Eowyn killing the Goblin King, for example, was basically telecast as soon as he said "No man can kill me" or whatever it was he said. The whole "ultimate weapon" that the "ghost soldiers" became made the threat seem silly and had me wishing that Aragorn had gone into the cave sooner, at least to save us the drama because they ended the grand battle all too quickly.
Finally, about endings, I've heard the complaint that it dragged on, but as far as I'm concerned, it didn't go far enough, however long it lasted. Fewer slow-motion score-heavy moments and more dialogue would have been my choice. Conclusions to the lives of Gimli, Legolas, Eowyn, Eomer, Faramir, Merry and Pippin would have been good starts, not to mention the Scouring of the Shire - part of the book I did read just for reference. I mean, the world changed, for better or worse, and there was no reason not to show that. Bilbo and Frodo's scene had no real impact for me, but I was never truly impressed with Elijah Wood's performance anyway and Bilbo's makeup was AWFUL - I mean he looked kind of like the Grand Whatsit that Wallace Shawn played on Deep Space Nine!
Don't get me wrong. I enjoyed much of the film. Denethor and Faramir, while I know they had no such relationship in the book, proved a beautiful dramatic piece and I really wanted to watch Denethor burn to death. Other high-drama and suspenseful moments were found throughout but I couldn't shake the sense that there was something missing from the experience.
All in all, I give the film a 7 out of 10.
I hope the Extended Edition DVD (which I will own) proves better.
--FW