Early on in the film, I was unimpressed by the characterization of the children; they seemed far too mature and “western” — they acted and spoke in ways that children their age would never do. During the bulk of the film, the oh-so-American Who Wants To Be A Millionaire setting and music killed a lot of the drama (incidentally: the game show company co-produced this film, so it’s not surprising if it feels like feature-length product-placement.) But finally, in the end, the romance just wasn’t there for me — they only knew each other as little children, and yet we’re expected to accept that their relationship is infinitely deep and meaningful. I just didn’t feel it.

5 stars (out of 5)

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

I’ll start with what I liked about the film by telling you where the tears welled up:

1. Arwen’s vision of Aragorn holding her child.
2. Gandalf describing what it is like to die to Pippin.
3. Eowyn holding Theoden as he dies.
4. When Frodo awakes in Minas Tirith, the moment when his
   eyes meet Sam’s.
5. When King Elessar, and the masses, kneel before the hobbits.

I really liked the pacing of this film; a vast improvement over The Two Towers, and I have to admit, I didn’t even miss Saruman — like Jackson has said, “it’s old business” from TTT, and I was happy to just get on with ROTK. Unlike TTT, there is less jumping around, and you really have a feeling throughout the movie that the fates of each group of people (Frodo/Sam, Theoden etc., Gandalf etc.) are closely intertwined.

The acting was top drawer, to be sure, and the emotional intensity of the trilogy definitely reaches a crescendo in ROTK.

I do have some nitpicks — the things that kept the film from “exceeding” my expectations:

First and foremost, I despised the part where Elrond claims Eowyn is dying because “her fate is tied to the ring.” It defies all logic, all sense, and it just comes out of left-field without warning or precedent; especially when the last scene of Arwen is when she has a vision about “living happily ever after,” and now all of a sudden she is dying, and shown lamenting that she will never see Aragorn again? It simply didn’t make sense, and seemed an incredibly cheesy plot device.

It seemed strange to emphasize Eowyn’s heartbreak, and Theoden passing on the rule of Rohan to her, but then to cut out the Houses of Healing scenes where, in the book, she hooks up with Faramir. After she slays the Witchking, Eowyn is only seen for a fleeting instant in the crowd at the coronation… sure, she’s standing beside Faramir, but it doesn’t seem a fitting end to her tale.

I’m surprised that the Mouth of Sauron wasn’t in the film; it seems like it would have been nice to have him present Frodo’s mithril shirt as apparent evidence of his destruction, and then have Aragorn take his step of faith in Frodo in spite of this evidence.

I was excited to see Merry and Pippin’s strong roles in the film — but saddened to see that Legolas and Gimli have very little to do, besides basically an exact repeat of their “counting game” from TTT. We’ve been there, done that… mumakil or no mumakil.

The “web” Shelob wraps around Frodo looks too fake during the scene when Sam is holding him (thinking him dead) — it took away from the dramatic tension of the moment, and killed the “suspension of disbelief.”

I don’t feel like the army of the dead should have looked like grotesque rotting corpses — they WEREN’T corpses, they were spirits, and should have looked fully human; but leave it to Peter Jackson, the horror film maker, to throw in a cheap horror element. That whole sequence fell flat because of it: had we seen the spirits of dignified men of yesteryear honestly seeming to be trying to redeem themselves, it would have been a much more powerful aspect of the plot. A bargain with corpses makes Aragorn look to be using evil to fight evil, and I doubt that’s how Tolkien would have intended it to appear.

I could have done without the Smeagol/Deagol introduction; I quite disliked the make-up jobs as they attempted to show Smeagol degenerating into Gollum; it just looked aweful, and forced me to give the make-up 4 out of 5 (that and some fake looking hobbit ears and feet — and the awfully over-done aging applied to Bilbo at the end.)

At the very end, when Frodo is invisible and Gollum jumps on him, the struggle should have been a bit more dynamic — the shots of Gollum floating around in the air went on too long — people in the theatre thought it was comical and started to laugh… well, clearly, this is not a moment in the film when people should be laughing. (And what’s the deal with Gollum sinking into the lava without any look of pain and the way his body must be burning and melting away?)

There was something that failed to grab me about the Grey Havens scene at the end, and I finally realized what it is: we’re never shown the ocean. All we see is the ship in an extremely sheltered cove, sailing towards a tight passage between two huge sheer mountains — I wanted, no, NEEDED to see the ocean’s vast expanse. (And, I had always secretly hoped that we would see the ship “leaving Middle-earth” in the way it does in that old John Howe painting… some how.)

I was surprised, after reading so many reviews that said “it has long, multiple endings,” to actually feel that the ending seems quite short. Sure, if you think the Ring’s destruction is the end of the story, maybe it would seem long — but no, this isn’t a movie about a Ring, it’s a movie about, first and foremost, Frodo — his journey isn’t quite over just because the Ring is gone, and we must follow it through to the end; quite right.

When all is said and done, I think Fellowship of the Ring will remain my favourite film of the trilogy — that’s not to say anything about about ROTK, though, because FOTR has always been my favourite part of the book, too, and I always expected I would like it best. ROTK will obviously be most peoples’ favourite, though, and understandably so; it is a stunning achievement.

One final word: No offense, but I actually hope Peter Jackson lets someone else direct The Hobbit (maybe he could produce it or something). I think I’d rather not see the horror film maker put his hand to what should be a lighter, children-oriented movie.

Here’s a few specific nitpicks:

•  We just don’t see enough of the characters, and they don’t interact with each other as poigniantly as in FOTR. Sure, there’s more action, more battle — but less… life… somehow.
• Does Grima have to look so obviously evil? Did Jackson say, “The audience is too stupid to realize he is a bad guy, so we need to make him look like a walking corpse so that the idiots watching this movie will understand.”
• What’s the deal with the way Theoden looks when we first see him? I guess they wanted to show his corruption “visually”… but they went too far, and the difference is drastic enough to prevent the suspension of disbelief. He should have looked sick, or dark, or something, sure… but not 200 years old.
• Not sure what all the hype about Gollum is… he was well done, but the performance didn’t blow me away. It was a bit hard to swallow the constant shifting between him being 100% murderous to 100% childlike… I felt like I was constantly “filling in the gaps” with my knowledge of him from the book — not sure how a non-book reader would take Gollum… he’s kinda stuffed down your throat in the movie.
• The dream sequences with Arwen were pretty dull. I think they would have been better to stick more closely to the Appendix — show how they met, etc. Shoulda played up the conflict between Aragorn and Elrond more, or something.
• The changes to Faramir didn’t thrill me. I think it was the point where he puts his sword to Frodo’s throat that it just goes to far. I just don’t see why this darker Faramir was better for the movie than the gentler book version (though I said the same about the darker Prancing Pony in FOTR… ). And in what way was the Osgiliath trip an improvement? It didn’t seem to do anything besides introduce a new set.
• Eowyn seems under-used, alas. During the battle of Helm’s Deep, my wife leaned over and said to me, “What ever happened to Eowyn?” — she needed some sort of role there — not battling, but at least doing something.
• I didn’t mind them bringing the elves to Helm’s Deep… but there is a cynical side of me that thinks they only did it because they wanted to bring in Haldir… someone known and yet expendable. I can’t think of anyone else who would have been better suited — and so it makes me think that they said, “Okay, who can we kill off that will bring at least a little emotional impact. Sure, Haldir. Okay, now how do we get him to Helm’s Deep?”…
• I really wish they hadn’t used John Rhys Davies as the voice of Treebeard. It’s not that there was anything wrong with it — it’s just that I could only hear Gimli whenever Treebeard would speak, and so it ruined the suspension of disbelief for me… (what reminds you that you’re only watching a movie more than the same actor in two different roles?) I mean really, couldn’t they find someone else?

…so, all of these nitpicks probably make it seem like I didn’t like The Two Towers, and yet that’s not the case at all. It’s a better movie than most, that’s for sure! But FOTR was sooo good, it had my hopes up a bit too high for TTT, I guess. (I don’t think TTT is going to be nominated for 13 Academy Awards the way FOTR was… I’d say they’ll get a Special Effects award, but that’d be about it, I think.)

Anyway, I’m happy to report that the Special Extended Edition DVD of The Two Towers goes a long way towards addressing my original reservations.

In the Extended Edition of Fellowship of the Ring, the “Most Improved Character” award goes to Galadriel — but here, in The Two Towers, that award definitely goes to Faramir. You get much better insight into his motivations during the flashback with Boromir (always great to see more of Sean Bean!) and his father, Denethor. In the book, of course, he is never even slightly tempted by the One Ring — wouldn’t even pick it up if he found it lying by the side of the road — and so it is nice to learn in the Extended Edition of Two Towers that he’s not tempted by the Ring in and of itself: he is only thinking about pleasing his father.

Another noteworthy addition comes when Faramir first captures the hobbits — in the Extended Edition, there’s a glimmer of Faramir’s character from the book when he walks over to the body of the fallen enemy and delivers some poignant lines (which I think were originally Sam’s in the book):

Frodo: “Those who claim to oppose the enemy would do well not to hinder us.”

Faramir: “The enemy? His sense of duty was no less than yours, I deem. You wonder what his name is… where he came from. And if he was really evil at heart. What lies or threats led him on this long march from home. If he would not rather have stayed there… in peace. War will make corpses of us all.”

Of course, it ties with Sam’s soliloquy at the end of the film:

Sam: “By rights, we shouldn’t even be here. But we are. It’s like in the great stories, Mister Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were. And sometimes you didn’t want to know the end, because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it’s only a passing thing… this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines, it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you… that meant something. Even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mister Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn’t. They kept going, because they were holding on to something.”

Frodo: “What are we holding on to, Sam?”

Sam: “That there’s some good in this world, Mister Frodo. And it’s worth fighting for.”

Faramir: “I think at last we understand one another, Frodo Baggins.”

However, no three-hour version of Fellowship of the Ring could possibly capture all of the book and make everyone happy — it would have to be a dozen hours to capture everything presented in the book. I think that perhaps Peter Jackson (a horror film director) focused a bit too much on the dark side of the story. After the ringwraiths appear, he literally takes the colour out of the film, making it almost black-and-white, and the hues — and joy — never returns. Bree is dark, and there is no fun in The Prancing Pony. Rivendell and Lothlorien become mysterious and menacing places. Also, almost all of the areas where Jackson added to the work were to make the movie even darker: Saruman’s evil role is increased, the orcs/Uruk-Hai feature prominently, and there’s a nasty cave troll added as well. This isn’t to say that the movie fails — but it is a far darker, and much more intense, vision of the Lord of the Rings than I personally might have preferred. It’s definitely not a film for children — mid-teens and upward only. All-in-all, I found that Jackson’s version of Fellowship of the Ring is perfectly executed according to his slightly more “current”, darker vision of it. I’m sure that very few people will find fault in that… one could argue that he makes it even more… “real”… with the more prominent and tangible evil. (And there’s definitely no room for Tom Bombadil in Jackson’s vision of FOTR, that’s for sure!)

Some small technical issues that I hesitate to mention but shall nonetheless:

The music was excellent, but it really plays a subtle supporting role and lacks a certain… punch or originality (though some would say that is exactly as it should be, and I wouldn’t dispute that.) The special effects were a bit unbalanced — some elements, such as the cave troll and the incredible balrog were perfectly executed, while others were noticeably flawed and unreal looking. (However, the size-difference of the hobbits is handled well, with very few moments where you notice any problems with perspective.) There are scenes shown in the trailers which are not present in the final film (can you say “special edition DVD version”…?), and there are threads that sort of dangle with the edits. For example: Gimli makes grandiose statements about people falling under the spell of the “elf-witch” of Lothlorien… and someone who knows the book realizes this is a set-up for the moment when he himself “falls under her spell” and asks for a strand of her hair — but this never happens; and the scene of them receiving brooches (a scene shown in the trailers) is missing… and yet, strangely, Jackson seems to go out of his way to show their brooches later in the film without explanation.

But, these are all nitpicks of an arm-chair critic — this is an excellent film. I was spell-bound for three hours, on the edge of my seat even though I have read The Lord of the Rings several times. The three hours passed so quickly; I could have easily sat and watched the entirety of the trilogy, glued to the screen. It’s going to be a long year, waiting for the next film — and I’m going to pick up the books again as soon as I get home…!

One final nitpick: Is it just me, or was Arwen presented as a more powerful wizard than Gandalf? What’s up with that? She commands the water to rise against the Nazgul, while Gandalf gets whipped (pun intended) in both his “magical” battles. (In the books, Gandalf takes credit for the water rising at the ford; in the movie, it is clearly Arwen who calls the water forth with magical words.)