What a tawdry, turgid bit of appalling celluloid. I have to say LOTR was a real disappointment.
Sure the scenery is fab, sure the special effects were astounding, but that did not make up for the fact that the film was an hour and a half too long, the acting way over hammed, the plot dragged terribly, blah blah blah.
Every time the elves hoved into view I felt the need to garotte myself out of utter boredom. The Shire is a place I would never want to visit out of fear of utter despondency and depression.
The soundtrack made everything sound so over-dramatic - they dragged the a**e out of every relative moment. I wanted Sam to drown just so the film would end a few minutes earlier,but oh no, cue artistic scene of him passing out under water, a rousing (ha!) score striking up and Frodo (bless 'im) reaching down in slow motion to drag him out of the water.
When Boromir gets three arrows in him you just want to shout 'hurry up and die - you're boring me!'
When Frodo says 'I'll take the ring to Mordor' you just wanted to get up and say 'great, can we go home now?'
On the plus side, and this is by no means a saving grace of the film, the half hour trek through The Mines of Moria was excellent. Gandalfs fall and his last words to the fellowship ('Run, you fools!') were the best bit of cinematography in the whole film.
At the end of the film my partner was crying, not because of the emotion inspired by it, but because she feared another turgid scene was about to rear it's ugly head and she couldn't take it anymore. I have never seen anyone bored to tears before. LOTR was a unique experience in that I saw that the turn of phrase can happen literally.
Here are some comments I heard from other members of the audience as we left the cinema:
'I never want to see that again.'
'That was so boring!'
'3 hours? It felt like 5!!!'
Folks, this film is a bitter disappointment - avoid it at all costs.
Not even 'The Phantom Menace' or 'Judge Dredd' was this bad...
I'm not just dissing it for the sake of it - my family reputation is at stake here too. Did I tell you my cousin was one of the set designers on the film? The jammy get came back from New Zealand loaded!
Seriously though, I've also read the book, and while I'm not a huge fan I do know it quite well. I realise that getting any book turned into a film can be very difficult, and the director is always fighting a semi-losing battle, as his vision of the book can be radically different to a lot of others. Maybe that's what happened with me - went in with very high expectations and was disappointed.
But then maybe not.
If you are into stunning vistas, cracking special effects and a rousing musical score, fine. However, I feel that if you enjoy well scripted and well acted films I really don't think this is the one for you. Obviously the film had to follow closely the plot of the book, which doesn't help much (long breaks of nothing much followed by a bit of trekking about, with some more nothing much - thrown in a few battles and a dash through a dwarvish mine for good measure etc) but there seemed to be very little humour involved, the acting was leaden and overhammed and the joy of it all seemed to have been squeezed out by over dramatisation.
It's a shame I stand by the principle that when I pay five quid to get in somewhere I damn well sit it out to the bitter end - I always make sure I get my moneys worth. Must be the Scottish in me... Seriously though, I feel that anyone who walks out of a film halfway through has no right to criticise it - laud it or denigrate it. I always like to give anything a fair chance and see it through to the end. I was just so hoping that it would draw me in and mesmerise me, but it didn't, and it's such a shame my tightfistedness wouldn't let me get up and leave.
So there... Phew! I'm glad I got that little lot off my chest!!!
I was pointing out that rap doesn't have the monopoly on anti-female sentiment.
