All Times Oscar for Effects!

Rating: 8/10 (23 December 2002)

Reading the comments of my fellow viewers I remark that having seen the film in the first days after the release I shared the experience with the hard core fans of the series. Not being one of them (until now at least), I can just comment of the quality of the film making. In my opinion, it is an extremely well directed film, superb camera work, and greater effects I have ever seen. If anybody doubts that computer effects became an art of its own, her/his doubts will be dissipated by this film. The complexity and perfection of some scenes looks like a big work of art, and the comparison coming to my mind is to Brueghel's or Bosch's paintings.
However, the story is very complex. The director decided that the whole film will be just one piece of art, broken into three slices of three hours each only by commercial reasons. This median series starts and ends in the midst of the story telling. Well, having been busy the last year with a few other things - among them seeing many other movies - and not having read the book, I had problems in getting much of the action and characters development. A short recollection of the previous series action would have helped, and I recommend it to distributors for the next time. They can of course, take it out for the big nine-ten hours screening in cinematheques of the future times :-)
People who read the book were mixed in their reactions. Some say that the book is richer in characters and philosophy, and the movie loses something. Well, this happens with most books adaptations. I think that in this case, there is a lot the screen adaptation has added as well. But I will certainly buy and read the book now!
It is still a good movie, one of the best of the year. I said good, but not great - only 8/10 on my personal scale, which I think will end being close to the real and deserved average mark of this film, after the initial fans enthusiasm cools out.