Fantasy at its finest

Rating: 10/10 (3 April 2006)

If you are a fan of fantasy and Tolkien, this movie is probably the best you'll ever see. If you are a fan of fantasy and haven't read Tolkien, this movie may inspire you to pick the books. If you are just not of the imaginative type (i.e. you can't get into a fantasy world because it is 'unreal'), this movie may seem boring.
This is a sci-fi movie. And your brain needs to be stimulated to accept the details of a new world. So the ones who complain about it being long shouldn't just see it in the first place. They aren't the type suited for it. For people who do care about depth and thought provoking ideas in a fantasy, the extra long nature of the movie is just what they had been in dire need for. Also, if we didn't have such a long run, the first tag to be thrown on the movie would be 'mindless action'.
Incredible story and direction make this the finest on-screen moment I've ever seen. There are those who would complain about The Army of Dead being too unreal. But if you look closely, the whole trilogy including The One Ring bit is unreal. The way that you connect part of imaginary world to your own is the real thing. And the story clearly expresses the desperation in which Aragorn used the Army of Dead in the battle for Gondor. Whereas he did comprehend the fact that the army can be used only for a single time and this certainly wasn't his last battle before Sauron's downfall.
This is one of the main aspects that I love about the trilogy, i.e. the relationship between hope and actions based on it. The story is a dark one which holds many paths and choices for the main characters. And though they don't have any hope, they still go for the best they could have hoped for. And through the complex plot line, we're explained many bits of sayings we interpreted only as 'quotes'. Such as "even the smallest one can change the course of history" or "don't be too eager to deal out death and life, for even the wise cannot see all the ends".
To summarize it all, this movie is as much for eyes as it is for brains. Lord of the Rings did change many aspects of my thinking. And the movie trilogy was my introduction to the phenomenon. So, a 10/10. Because that is the maximum rating I can pull off on IMDb.