Lard of the Rings

Rating: Null/10 (8 January 2003)

There must be a lot of Tolkien readers hyping up the movie 'cos unfortunately it seems like this movie was created for their watching pleasure only. The movie requires that you be familiar with the plots, subplots, characters and vocabulary that are in the books and that makes it hard for us ordinary mortals to follow what's going on at all. The movie becomes too long because of this too. I'm sure there are superfluous scenes that can be trimmed without disturbing the overall storyline.
But the biggest problem I had with this movie is that there is a sense of detachment that I get when watching it, that I end up being an observer rather than getting involved in the thick of it all. It's like watching "The Longest Day" instead of "Star Wars" (the original ones that is).
I am not asking for the movie to follow a formulaic Hollywood style storyline, I just want a simpler script. But then again this movie was created for the fans by a fan, not for me.