Pretty but Sad (spoilers)

Rating: 6/10 (20 January 2003)

I want to like this film, but I can't. Why? For starters, and yes, I'm sure I'll get a lot of flack for this, I feel the main thing going for this picture, and the trilogy as a whole, is that is kowtows to geeks and makes them feel as though a geek film can be a great film. Unfortunately, as this movie and the first installment show, that's sadly not true.
Don't get me wrong. I've been a "geek", by society's definition, for most of my life. Comic books? Check. Roleplaying Games? Check. But what you really have ask yourself when you view this film is, "If it wasn't based on this book that we've all read and love, would we think it was so damned fantastic when compared to truly great films?" The answer, if anyone is truthful, is "Probably not". The reason for the trilogy's ridiculously overinflated ratings is simple: It had a ready-made tribe of fans ready to love it, no matter what.
Visually, the film is beautiful. The effects are a treat for the eye. The battles are sweeping and epic. Unfortunately, due to the massive number of characters in the stories, and the one-note nature of many of them, each and every one comes off as a cutout. Only the love story between Eowyn and Aragorn, and Smeagol's madness, have *any* moxie, and they don't have enough to buoy the whole picture. Shameless catering to modern tastes has Legolas "skating" on a shield. Yeah, that was in the book. (It wasn't, but you knew that). Gimli is portrayed as a bumbling fool, solely for laughs. We're shown 50 zillion times how the ring corrupts. (We got it the first few thousand times the point was belabored in the first movie).
It's sad that people in search of validation for their lifestyle feel that they need to champion such a flawed film. All it takes is one look at IMDB's top 250...when you see that this movie is ahead of classics like Apocalypse Now and Rear Window, you know that the fanboys (and girls) are taking over the asylum.