I can't understand how Peter Jackson, a director I once
admired (see: Heavenly Creatures) has so totally failed to capture the essence
of Tolkien's story, which, although largely a sprawling mess, nevertheless
managed to create a palpable sense of all-pervading evil while dissecting the
frailties of man alongside the demise of an age of mysticism. At least I think
that's what it said :-)
Instead what we see on the screen is a neverending video game, which, even when
judged purely on its own merits, is devoid of emotion and incapable of
generating any interest.
Just like in the Two Towers, apparently inconsequential things like, oh I don't know, having an actual plot, and developing characters that aren't made out of cardboard, are glossed over entirely. Instead, vast portions of the movie are given over to watching huge armies prepare to fight battles for cities that we've never heard of and don't care anything about. There is a total lack of suspense, as the main characters appear to be largely indestructible. Besides, the bad guys' (Orcs et al.) astounding ineptitude and cowardice always leads to their almost instant defeat, which makes me wonder why they even bother turning up, cocky as ever, in film after film. Also, the movie suffers from the lack of any clear enemy. The main villain, Sauron, appears to be some sort of giant lighthouse, a curious conceit, but one which really should have remained in the coke-addled brains of whoever conceived this monstrosity. Poor Christopher Lee's Saruman fares worse and is missing altogether, an omission which can only be attributed to one thing: idiocy.
Jackson's directing style is tiresomely repetitive and simplistic. He has no clue how to generate suspense, or even how to pace a scene correctly. We are forced to endure endlessly banal slow-panning shots from afar, and mind-churningly rapid editing (presumably orchestrated to lessen the chance of people noticing the often crude special effects). The frequent blue screen work might have been impressive had the film been made 100 years ago, but in the 21st Century comes across only as lazy and incompetent. Some of the special effects in the battle scenes are admittedly impressive, but such things cannot carry an entire movie. Also, those hobbit body doubles were the funniest thing I've seen in my life! Who knew it was actually a comedy (explains Sean Astin's "acting") . In general, the acting in this movie was distinctly average. Certain actors however, managed to plumb depths of baseness the likes of which I've seldom seen. As usual, I was absolutely bowled over by Elijah Wood - his face runs the full gamut of emotions from A to A.
Return of the King is not a total failure however - Denethor's departure was unexpectedly entertaining, and I was genuinely impressed by by Minas Tirith. The lighting of the beacons was also reasonably well done. The multiple false endings were a great gag - Jackson shows exactly what he thinks of an audience who have bravely endured three hours of bloated incompetence, by taunting them with what seemed like six hours of the most pointlessly pathetic scenes ever committed to celluloid, occasionally fading to black to keep people on their toes.
I feel that Peter Jackson's main mistake has been to slavishly try to incorporate as much from the books as possible, while simultaneously making his own little changes which, due to his inexperience as a director, invariably are inferior to Tolkien's version and seem to dilute the characters. Jackson's self proclaimed love of the novels has worked against him - a braver and more experienced director could have added his own artistic vision while being unafraid to make much needed changes such as possibly condensing the plot into one film. Very many movie adaptations of novels are shortened dramatically and characters are removed, added or amalgamated, often with improved result. Lord of the Rings, while a hardy effort and a very important addition to the fantasy milieu, is not the word of God and as such there's no reason to draw it out into three movies, particularly when the second movie installment is one of the worst atrocities yet perpetrated on mankind. (I'd write a review, but I can't summon enough invective to do it justice.) Although to be fair to Jackson I felt that The Fellowship of the Ring was made with a deal of style - it's such a pity that the second two movies descended into such deplorable mediocrity.
Critics and the general public seem to be going gaga
over this movie- I can only hope that time will reveal them as the degenerate
morons they are. Hopefully, when this happens, some enterprising soul will
drown the screenwriter. Enrolling Viggo Mortensen in acting school would also
be a plus.
201 minutes
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written by Ed on 29 December 2003