Nice flick  where's the rest of it...?

Rating: Null/10 (19 December 2003)

I have seen ROTK last night and it took almost a day for the emotions to settle enough to write this review. I had such high expectations for Jackson's big finale, and mostly they were met. Mostly, I say.
Met because: Minas Thirit and everything around it was breathtaking. Paths of the Dead were great, Shelob too. There was suspense, the emotions were running high and three hours went by in a blink. The several fade-outs in the end seemed to annoy people (thinking, 'this is the end  no wait, then this must be the end, no wait...'). For me they seemed like appendices and I liked that too  especially the Gray Havens. Not met because: there is one thing that really bothered me (and have in mind that I'm NOT a Tolkien purist); it was evident  much more so than in the first two movies  that big portions were cut out of ROTK to squeeze it into the present running time of three and a half hours.
This film leaves me wanting for the extended version much more so than the first two (of which I thought even the shorter versions were excellent, while the extended ones are brilliant). For this one I can say it's good, quality wise on the level with the first two, but it's missing big chunks in it  and I'm not speaking from a standpoint of missing parts of the book, but simply missing parts of the logical plot development. For example:
*** Spoiler ***
You see Éovyn head over heals for Aragorn before the battle, and immediately after she's with Faramir on the coronation.
*** Spoiler ends ***
So, all 'n all I say 7/10 for the theatrical version and expecting at least 9/10 for the extended version.