an overblown waste of money

Rating: 5/10 (24 January 2003)

Peter Jackson's films worked best when they didn't take themselves seriously at all (as in the case of BRAINDEAD or MEET THE FEEBLES). His trilogy so far is indeed very well shot and edited (though each film so far could easily afford to cut at least an hour away), but the big mistake here is that the films keep wavering back and forth from silly stuff to graveyard stoicism.
The battle scenes are overinflated CGI extravaganzas with lots to look at but nothing really interesting. I kept thinking of the film WATERLOO (the 1970 Sergei Bondarchuk version) and realized that the battle scenes in that 33-year-old film were actually better-filmed, more believable, and more enjoyable than here, where everything is fake - and definitely looks it. The music is unmemorable, as are the bland actors (except for the underused Brad Dourif and Christopher Lee of course, but these days the real talent is slowly getting replaced by the likes of "Viggo Mortensen" and "Liv Tyler") - but I digress.
I'm not gonna stand on a soap box all night and rant about how silly this movie is and how the Tolkien and AD&D fans (and I used to be one myself) will eat up every minute of this. However, I have to point out that it runs far too long, and the action sequences seem to just come and go without adding to the story in the least, just filler. Basically, all the characters are in the same situation at the end that they were at the beginning of the film... the whole movie is filler.
I actually preferred the animated 1978 Bakshi version, in that it was much better paced and felt more stylized and less like a big cash cow. It's too bad that Bakshi never was able to finish his film, but then again he had about the same budget to make his film that the LOTR trilogy spent on wigs. That film actually had heart.
In spite of the fact it was merely made to cash in on all the nerd-money not yet spent on computer games and "Warhammer 40k" pewter models, this film will probably sweep the Oscars... which in my opinion is truly sad, considering there were probably thousands of better movies made this year - but so few were widely seen.