*** (out of ****)
Starring Elijah Wood, Ian McKellan, Viggo Mortensen, Sean Astin, Andy Serkis, Orlando Bloom, John Rhys-Davies, Bernard Hill, Miranda Otto, Hugo Weaving, Billy Boyd, Dominic Monaghan, John Noble, Cate Blanchett, Liv Tyler, and Ian Holm
Directed by Peter Jackson & written by Jackson, Frances Walsh, and Philippa Boyens, from the novel by J.R.R. Tolkien
2003
201 minutes PG13
Most Over-Rated Movie 2003
Almost over. Thank God. All we have left is the fifteen month theatrical run, the sweeping of the Academy Awards for lack of any popular competition, the much anticipated DVD release some time next year, the even more anticipated special edition DVD release after that, then about a year or two of cult-style fervor, and then, finally, at last, it might all start to wear off. People might start calling “The Lord of the Rings” good movies, instead of great ones, and we can all go back to our normal lives.
Yes, this too, shall pass. Last time I checked, “Titanic,” the highest-grossing movie of all time, which for a while you couldn’t get people to shut up about, is no longer even on the user-voted IMDb Top 250 Movies. Say what you will about the Top 250’s critical value, but it is a decent barometer of popular opinion. So there’s hope that when all the hype finally vanishes—when you can go to a friend’s house without him saying “I just downloaded the new ‘Return of the King’ trailer! You want to see it?!”—even an old stick-in-the-mud like me can finally settle down and enjoy director Peter Jackson’s achievement and actually say “that was good, maybe even very good,” instead of “that was alright, but what’s the big deal?” In much the same way that I’m glad the last “Matrix” movie is finally out, and sinking fast (after five weeks it’s only playing once or twice a day at the theater nearest me), I’m looking forward to the “LOTR” madness being over.
All along, Roger Ebert has been complaining about how the innocent Hobbit spirit of Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings” has been replaced with a hard-edged, human-oriented action movie. While Hollywood has been going on and on about how “The Lord of the Rings” could not be made until now because of technological requirements, he wrote, in 2000, “The Ring Trilogy embodies the kind of innocence that belongs to an earlier, gentler time. The Hollywood that made ‘The Wizard of Oz’ might have been equal to it. But ‘Fellowship’ is a film that comes after ‘Gladiator’ and ‘Matrix,’ and it instinctively ramps up to the genre of the overwrought special-effects action picture.”
I’ve never read the books, and having seen the movies, I probably never will, because it’s so hard to read a book after you’ve seen the movie, while the reverse is so much easier. But I have been to this restaurant in the museum district called The Hobbit Café, and I suspect it captures the cozy warmth of the books which Ebert claims is lacking from the films. The Café is built out of someone’s old house, with hardwood floors, oak branches looming over the patio, and a cat who lives under the boardwalk. An non-uniformed waitstaff serves the kind of health-conscious entrees that let you know these guys vote left. Knickknacks are everywhere and every table seems to have been bought at a different time and place. If Peter Jackson’s “Lord of the Rings” films were made into a restaurant, it would look a lot like Planet Hollywood, or maybe the Rainforest Café, and it would be just as loud, with high steel ceilings and identically-dressed, headset-wearing waitresses. The food would taste a lot more like Chili’s, come in too-large servings, and make you a little worn out after eating.
For a movie in which none of the characters use technology, “The Lord of the Rings” sure is a celebration of it. Every frame of every second is packed with some effect or another, threatening to keep me from feeling like I’m watching a story at all, and more like I’m trying out a new car, a new stereo, or some other boy-toy you might get from Circuit City. A friend of mine remarked the constant barrage of details proving that the story is taking place in the past actually keeps reminding him he’s not in the past at all.
But I kid because I love. I may tease “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy a lot, but it is a huge, splendid production and awesome to behold. The final picture in the trilogy, “The Return of the King,” features demonic armies swarming on horseback over vast meadows, wide-eyed little heroes lost in black caves and canyons, legions of the undead emerging from the darkness, trolls hurling boulders from the backs of elephants with morning-star tusks, and winged dragons doing battle with giant eagles. The white city of Gondor is like Brueghel’s “Tower of Babel” with Notre Dame Cathedral on top, and there’s a terrific shot of the wizard Gandalf on horseback, scaring off dragons with a light from his staff, and then lingering on him as he gallops away (although, with its pace and editing strategy, its hard to say that anything in “LOTR” lingers).
Like it predecessors “The Fellowship of the Ring” and “The Two Towers,” “The Return of the King” is quick-paced, solemn, a little pompous, mostly humorless, and not exactly packed with psychological depth. Its story is split between two little Hobbits (Elijah Wood and Sean Astin) trying to reach the only place where the dread Ring of Power can be destroyed, and Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen) and the human armies uniting to battle the legions of evil. The Hobbits are beset by the treacherous man-beast Gollum (Andy Serkis, once again digitally altered into the most beautifully disgusting monster you’ll ever see), with whom they have struck a bargain in order to reach the volcano where the Ring can be destroyed. Meanwhile, Aragorn must finally accept his destiny as king of Gondor and convince various divided human tribes to unite.
Page two of “The Return of the King” Back to home.