"Q: Where Would You Rather Be? A: Anywhere But Here..."

Rating: 2/10 (6 September 2008)

Follow in "The Lord of the Rings" creator's (J.R.R. Tolkien's) footsteps. Project a malevolent universe. Invent a world and animate it with creatures in conflict. Make the conflict a battle between good and evil, but don't identify clearly the moral value or purpose of either side. In fact, remove morality's essence altogether by eliminating the power of choice for your characters. Emphasize the corruptibility of men. Glamorize the supernatural. Dwell interminably on the preparations for and the wreaking of violence and destruction, on the fragility of hope and happiness. Name the scene of action: Middle-earth. Sound like an environment you'd care to envision? Would you "live" there? If so, fate alone will decide its survival and your own. You can visit this predetermined "paradise" by watching/enduring/suffering Peter Jackson's elaborately filmed adaptation of Tolkien's epic trilogy, which concludes with "The Return of the King." I hold it is true that what is not worth contemplating in life is not worth contemplating in art. For its dismaying lack of meaningful moral definition, its pervasive pictorial ugliness, the quantity of its scenes of mind-numbing graphic violence, and its minimizing of the value of happiness, "The Lord of the Rings" films--including this one--ought to be shunned and damned.