I hope Jackson hasn't painted himself into a corner

Rating: 8/10 (5 July 2003)

I did not like this as much as I did "The Fellowship of the Ring." It looked like it was drastically edited at the last minute to meet time constraints, and some of the CGI/animation work was jarring. I'm still willing to give it a try on the "special edition" DVD (where I assume that scenes will be added back.)

However, I get really nervous when I think about how *much* material still has to be covered. I'm also very concerned that some scenes in the first film that I think will be necessary to have the *last* scenes in "Return of the King" make sense were deleted in the theatrical release. And if we have yet another dwarf-tossing joke in ROTK, I'm probably going to throw something at the screen.
All that said, this is an amazing project, and even if flawed it is worth seeing. It's not #10 on anyone's all-time best list (not when there are films like "Children of Paradise" and "Andrei Rublev" out there)... but the complete trilogy may hit close to that mark. And the acting remains excellent.