MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR

Rating: Null/10 (4 December 2002)

Warning, my dears, for these SPOILERS may shock If you've spent fifty years living under a rock.
LotR: TTT delivers every bit of the massive, thrilling spectacle it promises. While riffing on Tolkien's basic themes (evil is bad; benevolence is good), it throws us into wild orc fracases (or would that be fricassees?), gruelling identity-quests (both Frodo and the brilliantly-animated Gollum go quite ringy-dingy) and seemingly endless money-shots for the New Zealand Tourism Bureau. While there are occasional lapses of logic for the characters (Aragorn: "Oh, let's just let that evil Wormtongue escape so he can assist the significantly more evil Saruman in attacking us!") and the writers ("Oh, let's just end the movie on a relatively dull note!"), the overall aura is magical and mysterious. Not nearly enough Christopher Lee here, and the Elvish Overdubbing -- though beautiful -- is sandwiched in pretty awkwardly, but the "peripheral hobbits" are all terrific, the Elf and the Dwarf arouse and amuse appropriately, and Théoden's niece and those wonderful Ents are welcome in my garden absolutely