|
MINI FILM CRITIQUE:
The hype over "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King" has been so immense that I feel like I am almost
committing heresy here by telling you that I am very disappointed with this movie. And this is even in spite of my seeing
this movie on a giant IMAX screen (highly recommended for the experience).
The battle sequences and all the special effects rate an A+ in my book. Furthermore, I will admit that this movie is the
finest finish to a trilogy ever made, but...
But... This movie whimpers and simpers to a sappy and sentimental ending that drags on for FAR too long, at least one
half hour too long by my guesstimate, in this 3 hour and 21 minute film. My analysis would be that the fault lies completely
in the writing by J. R. R. Tolkien.
My problems with this movie are these: Issues are left unresolved, further plot questions are raised, characters disappear
from the story without any reason whatsoever, and, most importantly, relationship issues are not dealt with in a mature and
a logical manner.
----------------------
MOVIE CRITIQUE:
I am going to go on the assumption that most of most of you have either seen one or both of the two preceding LOTR films
and/or you already know something about this film franchise.
There is not much point in my critiquing a franchise that is so universally acknowledged and beloved by so many people,
especially by someone like myself who has not read the Tolkien novels. But any story, including THIS story, has to be complete
and the characterizations have to be fulfilled, and they aren't in this movie. Furthermore, this film is riddled with holes
in its logic and holes in its plot that drive me up a wall.
What I completely fail to understand is the almost universal acclaim that this movie has received. For example, the Chicago
Tribune film critics have both named this movie the best movie of 2003. This movie rates an extraordinarily high 96% on the
RottenTomatoes web site of movie critic reviews. The IMDB movie list of best films ever made (heavily influenced, unfortunately,
by teenaged fans of this series) rates this movie as the fourth best movie ever made. Finally, this movie is on practically
every movie critic's "10 Best Movie List for 2003."
Huh? What were these guys smoking or drinking before they saw this film?
Or am I in the incorrect (minority) position of complaining about a masterpiece and I just don't get it? In short, am
I the village idiot when it comes to this film?
My only outside comment of an analytical nature would be that most critics were hugely disappointed, and deservedly so,
by the final films in the Matrix trilogy, the Star Wars trilogy, and the Godfather trilogy. Furthermore, everyone has more
or less despised the last two efforts of George Lucas to resurrect his failing and flailing Star Wars franchise. My assumption
would now be that everyone has heaved a huge collective sigh of relief that "The Return of the King" is actually
a pretty good movie and a worthy successor to the first two films of this franchise.
But does this make it a masterpiece or just a cinematic Bufferin tablet, a relief that the final film of this trilogy
didn't collapse down a Hobbit hole somewhere on the Middle Earth shire?
Here is a partial list of my complaints with "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King."
1. The movie opens with the story of how Smeagol finds the Ring
and becomes the slimy, corrupted, ghostly Gollum. The story? Oh, he was out fishing with his friend. A large fish pulled
his friend overboard and he spied the glint of the gold Ring on the bottom of the river. Smeagol had to have the Ring and
he killed his friend for the possession of it.
Oh, boy! Isn't this a story to whisper to your grand kids before they go to bed? We wait this long only to find out that
Tolkien has such a small imagination for this pivotal point of the Ring Trilogy?
This is another example of a very pedestrian story being way, way over-hyped.
2. Why didn't Gollum die after falling off what looked like a 1,000 foot cliff?
3. How did Sam get the Ring and its necklace off the neck of Frodo, who was tightly bound in the spider webbing?
4. How was he able to carry it so far, and in total secrecy, without others finding out that he had it OR the Ring affecting
him the same horrible way that it had affected the others who had possessed it?
5. After Sam found the Hobbit sandwich that the villain Gollum had thrown over the cliff, a sandwich that vindicated his
honor and honesty, why didn't he offer it to Frodo, who desperately needed it as sustenance, but also as further proof to
Frodo that Sam was the honest one and Gollum the liar?
6. If Gollum found it SO easy to locate Frodo and Sam (and his "precious") ring on the slopes leading to the
volcanic fire pit of Mordor, how is it that the evil Lord Sauron didn't know where they were as well? Why wasn't HIS ring
calling out to HIM like it had in the earlier Ring movies?
7. What happened to the evil Lord Saruman (Christopher Lee), a delightful villain and a worthy adversary to the good wizard
Gandalph if there ever was one, in any of this? He just disappears!
Here is a pivotal character in the first film who could have made this film so much better because he is an anthropomorphic
wizard instead of Sauron, who is just a motionless evil eye locked between two spires on a distant mountain castle in Mordor.
8. Aragorn is crowned king and all of a sudden he finds his true
love, Arwen, hiding behind a banner after his coronation. Is this supposed to be his definition of true love: that weeks,
perhaps even months, pass, before he finds her, without his ever going to look for her?
Wouldn't it be logical that the first thing that he would do after their victory over evil would be to search for his
Lady Love? This guy isn't the romantic type, is he?
9. What happens to the gutsy little Princess Eowyn? Aragorn dashes her hopes, her father is killed in battle, she becomes
queen of her realm, but she also disappears off the face of the Middle Earth in this film. As one of the most likable characters
in this movie, doesn't this spunky lass deserve a better fate than this? And a man of her own, perhaps in the form of Legolas?
Here is another example of the hero ending up with a Lady Love who is an enigma, an undeveloped personality, while the
really delightful (and equally pretty) Eowyn has her romantic hopes dashed.
10. Frodo can't make it back in the Hobbit Shire after all that he has been through. Okay. I can understand this.
What I can't understand, however, is the sappy and sentimental ending with Frodo, his aged uncle, Gandalph, and Galadriel
sailing off in a ship together, an obvious metaphor for death (or at least a transition out of Hobbit-hood of some kind).
So, my questions about this weak ending are:
> Why do Galadriel and Gandalph have to "die?" I will admit here that Gandalph told Frodo that death is
a nice alter existence and something that he is personally familiar with, but what's Gandolph doing on this ship? Or Galadriel?
> And if "humans," as they said, are taking over the world, why aren't the other fairies of Galadriel's
species with her?
> If the fairies like King Elrond were fleeing their homes, did they all get to come back after Sauron was vanquished?
Will he get to enjoy the company of his grandson?
> And does Arwen have to become mortal just to mate with a mortal Middle Earth human, Aragorn, or do fairies procreate
in some other, unexplained manner?
My major complaint is the "The Return of the King" fizzles to a close with a simplistic ending that lacks drama,
drones on and on, and raises more questions than it answers.
This would have been a MUCH stronger story (and a movie) if Frodo had sacrificed his life for the good of Middle Earth
by falling into the fiery pit at Mordor. The nobility of personal sacrifice of the one for the good of the many is enshrined
throughout many cultures and religions and is universally admired.
Here are three alternate, BETTER and FAR MORE DRAMATIC endings for Frodo:
1. Frodo could have fallen into the fiery pit during his fight to the death with the now completely evil Gollum.
2. Sam could have charged Frodo and Gollum when it looked like Gollum would wrest the Ring away from Frodo and all three
could have fallen to their deaths in the fiery pit.
3. Frodo could have looked up at Sam from his tenuous grasp below the cliff ledge and both could have realized that his
(Frodo's Life's Work) was over. He has saved Middle Earth.
Frodo could have said a quiet goodbye to his best friend and loyal comrade and ended it all. Sam could have gone home
to the Hobbit Shire to write the story about their experiences much like Watson has done for his idol, Sherlock Holmes, etc.
Instead, Frodo goes home to Hobbit Hill and four years later realizes that he, like so many other heroes, cannot adjust
to a normal life.
So he decides to sail off into the sunset. Now there's a dramatic ending for you...
Anyway, that's my take on it. Tolkien could have written a much better ending.
|
