Look at the big picture

Rating: 8/10 (28 December 2002)

I'm glad to see so much balanced comment this year on TTT. IMHO, the vitriolic rabble who rate it 1 simply don't understand movies. As a film this is a fine piece of movie-making- not perfect, but absorbing from both the position of fast action and slow-paced dialogue.
It has flaws but the substance of the film is great epic story-telling. The essence if not the exact detail of the book IS represented, and it has been said dozens of times here, that it is simply not possible or desirable to film the book page by page. The inherent problems of the middle-part of the story cannot be avoided but I feel the structure with omissions for later and emergence of Gollum have made TTT a satisfying movie.
We all have our mental Middle-Earths and they vary from person to person. Jackson has done as well as anyone can in presenting a public Middle-earth. I admire the attention to the visual detail esp costumes, the use of the landscapes, the advances in CGI, casting,music. I found with the FOTR that there is so much in it that it is not possible to absorb it sufficiently in a single viewing. I think that this is so much more so with this film. New characters, some of whom give superb performances eg Brad Dourif, Andy Serkis, and some of the 'old' ones who do develop all make it a more complex movie.
I recognize the flaws and limitations, but, in the end, the world will have a wonderful 10-11 hour movie epic of Tolkien's work ..we should be thankful.
9/10 for FOTR 8/10 for TTT and let's all hope that the ROTK is the crowning glory of the epic... it certainly has all the drawing together of the threads to allow that to happen.