oh lord. let's not mince words here. i hated lord of the rings: return of the king. i mean, you could not pay me enough to sit through that movie again. i dubbed it "the worst movie of all time" when i left the theatre. clearly i'm going a bit overboard. drop dead fred is my worst movie of all time. keep it real. but this, this was THE worst movie of all time. in taking the equation of expectations built up through two other movies, multiplied by glowing reviews, multiplied by friends loving it, multiplied by "you'll love it!" and then dividing all that by my disappointment, you reach a big fat "return of the king is the worst movie of all time." for me it was on par with sitting through titanic. and not just because it was long. but for the last hour i was in unspeakable mental anguish over where this movie was going. not that i didn't know anyway, because i read the books. but i objected to how it was done.



let me preface my ranting and raving by saying that while the books were enjoyable because they were the "first fantasy books," i was similarly disappointed with the ending of the written trilogy. i've been raised on pulp fantasy books so maybe i've lost all taste regarding this matter and i should look at lords as a classic that spawned many derivatives -- rather than as a stand alone piece waiting to be directly compared to the derivatives. because quite honestly, there are a handful of other fantasy trilogies (or just series in general) that i have enjoyed infinitely more than the lord of the rings one. off hand i would say dragonlance, icewind dale, dark elf trilogy, death gate cycle, david eddings, etc. i respect jrr tolkien's world and his creation and his dedication to language and detail but i can only handle so much walking about in the woods with what amounts to, essentially, heroes who do nothing. and yes, i realize every other fantasy writer is just building off of tolkien's creations (elves, dwarves, orcs, whatever) and his stereotypes, so his is the land that all fantasy walks in. but it still sucked.



perhaps my fantasy worlds and imagination is filled with too many powerful wizards, juiced up swords and wisecracking thieves. in D&D terms, i may be a "god player" who can only enjoy a campaign when i'm 18 attributed across the board, with a sword of smite and a cleric/mage/barbarian hybrid. so instead of reveling in the magic of finding a long sword +1, i scoff at low powered adventures. you have no idea what i'm talking about. but if you do, you are my people. anyway, the point is, i read the last two books of the trilogy hoping for a big payoff and i didn't get it. same with the movie.



i will refrain from objecting to the trilogy as a whole. but really, did you find frodo's quest particularly noteworthy? or the heroes particularly astounding? i know it's the theme that even small powerless hobbits (aka you, the frustrated pre-pubescent teenager) can make a difference but i found the lack of direct confrontation between frodo and sauron disappointing. he goes all this way to kill......gollum. wheeee. but i will set that gripe aside. oh wait, one more. what exactly is gandalf a wizard of? light bright and bleach? good gracious. his powers are weaker than peach schnapps. in three movies he's essentially used his all powerful "shining beacon of hope" staff and that's about it. he's an old magician who is somehow reduced to using sword and staff in order to engage in combat. what about you makes you a magician exactly? he can't even float across the grand canyon or make the statue of liberty disappear. wackalicious. and why are you sending the little hobbit to set the signal fire? perhaps i don't understand the logistics involved in the magic of tolkien's world but any world that a "wizard" cannot create or do much of anything is inconceivable to me. throw a torch, set your own damn signal fire, don't send the buffoon hobbit. but hey, every hobbit must have its time to shine. good job merry, you lit the fire without killing yourself. go you. but even here with the wizard thing, i am willing to be magnamious. perhaps the connotation of "wizard" in gandalf's case was just as a very wise man who'd been around the block a few times. and it implied no superior magic or talent outside of the ability to resist dirt. i can concede that i guess. but somehow gandalf didn't seem like the most powerful of allies - would you rather have had gandalf or saruman on your side? seriously. gandalf was very grandfatherly though and seemed like a very nice man.



on to the actual movie. i won't even go into the scenes showcasing the affection between the hobbit couples. i could go there. and during the movie i did go there. but i will rise above it now. we can all read between the lines. hobbit culture is a very affectionate one apparently. that's fine. i love hobbits. they are fun and useful to have around, especially during football season. but is it entirely necessary to drag us through every crying moment and "oh i've missed you" scene? there were less cheesy attempts at tugging my heartstrings in "love, actually." i didn't realize i had signed up for a three hour romantic comedy when i took my seat three and a half hours ago. and then there's the comedy, why are you making things so blatantly comedic? hobbits are funny, use them as the foil. leave the dwarf out of it. dwarves get a bad rap in this version of the story, but you knew that. no fully bearded dwarf would hesitate to walk into a cave regardless of who was inside. crap man, crap.



i even object to some of the fight scenes. blasphemy i know. but really, were the fight scenes not better pre-fight than during fight? it was much cooler to see everyone all ranked up and hurtling towards each other. as opposed to quick camera pan here, quick slash slash there (was it a bad guy or a good guy who just got killed?), quick pan out. and was there really any excellent fighting going on? outside of maybe legolas? aragorn gets his ass knocked down by a troll (more on mr king later). the rest of the heroes just ran around stabbing folk in the back. and gandalf's kinda cool two weapon usage was hard to see with the close camera angle. and please, eowyn is beheading a dragon with her five cent sword? in two swipes!!! what?!?! you can't even behead a dog in two swipes (i've tried)! shit. and then that feared dark wizard character sure sucked it up. nice armor and mace but boy, could you get a more embarassing death?



oh and gee, aragorn certainly had to fight to prove his kingship. here's my sword, the elves fixed it, one parry and i'm ready to be king now. why no fight with the undead king to prove his valor and the truth of his blood? he just gave a speech? dude. and his speeches were pretty lame-o. way to inspire your new army, "the age of man will be over, but not today. we will all die soon, but not today." william wallace he's not. and why is he not running back to his lady love after the battle when he's been informed that she's dying? he's waiting around (for many days probably to get sanitized and showered and stuff) to be crowned and then gets "surprised" she's still alive? right, good luck there lover boy. have fun taking out the trash.



and here, the topper of them all. the eye of sauron, the evil behind mordor is......a piss poor imitation of a searchlight. this is not a jail break here. an evil all knowing sauron can't have a more effective way of keeping track of things than using a flood light? wow. can you say that the final villain was beyond anti-climactic? and nice how the lava and earthquake drop off right at the "good" army. very good planning on gandalf the great's part. he is wise.



i also didn't really feel the characters at all. i say i hated this movie because it tried to show me how to feel. it didn't make me feel. "this is an important part because hey, we said it's important." slow pans, soft music, sunshiney lights, thunderous laugh track (oh there wasn't a laugh track?). all of it was akin to an armageddon, trying to make you cry here here and here. and cheer for the hero here here and here. and oh look, the little hobbits are so brave and so wee and so cute! look at them charge into battle with their wee little helmets and equally wee swords. wheeeee! shoot me. and how convenient they have mighty might armor for merry. are so many halflings made soldiers of gondor that they have it conveniently in stock? or they had so much time that a smith was commissioned to make adjustments? but i will suspend disbelief for the purposes of this "fantasy."



people said to me afterwards, "you can't compare this to other movies." but oh i can. for my money, braveheart and gladiator were far superior movies. they were also "fantasy" (with some historical accuracy) but they didn't make you go "man this is cheesy." and that's taking into account similar epic type movies. the new star wars suffers from the same problem with no real characters to feel and a penchant for cheesiness. so did matrix two and i'm assuming three (since i didn't see it). the pacing for this movie was a tad long too i'd say, but that's a minor quibble.



i do admire peter jackson for the job he did. he stuck to the story as it was supposed to be and did a marvelous job of directing and pushing the project. i may have issues with the story itself but peter jackson is a stud. the acting was pretty all around great (although the dialogue just got worse and worse). the sets were amazing. the CGI is off the hook. it's great to see a fantasy movie get some respect. and i hope this leads to more fantasy movies. but overall, this conclusion to a storied trilogy was just a clunker. and i may be in the minority but i am not alone. others share my feelings and my observations. perhaps not as violently as i feel them, but they share them. i so wanted this movie to be the greatest film of all time. but it is not. it'll probably win academy awards for everything this side of middle earth but it's so not deserving. but it's the academy so what do they know? then again, it's me, so what do i know? i just know it sucked and it was so not worth staying up for.



to add some more positivity to it. here's what should of happened. the scene where faramir's dad is eating all those grapes and sending him off to die? that's good ass stuff right there. they are showing us how crazy and evil he is. using the screen to expand the page. most of the other times during the movie they were using the books as a crutch to lean on. sure there is a thousand pages of story but really, give us some character. use the film to give us what we can't get from the book, which is the images, the creatures, the sense of visual/audio fear. don't go to the "dial an emotion" way of film making. shit. anyway, at least i've found my new risk battle cry. for gondor!



i'm done blogging about movies for now. it's just a draining experience to go off on a film when you expected it to be decent.