Finally broke down and saw the new Lord of the Rings last night. Surprisingly enough, I enjoyed it. Kind of a strange flick, there’s no backstory so this film couldn’t possibly stand on its own as a movie and it seems to want to do too much. As a result you end up with a sort of mish-mash of seemingly unrelated stories happening all across the “globe.” I will say, however, I didn’t get up at the end and think, “My ass hurts,” like I did after the first one. A nifty trick that.
Some things are going to take some sorting out. I don’t understand exactly what’s happening with the elves. Doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. And Liv Tyler is not only not terribly pretty, she’s a fairly damned bad actress to boot. The chick from Rohan (Aowyn?) would have made a much better Arwen…even with black hair. I loved the scene of the trolls opening the gate to Mordor…nifty exposition. Gollum/Smeegle was in-freaking-credible and probably did more than anything else to keep the film flowing and interesting.
I have to say, I’ve never read the books and don’t even want to attempt them in the middle of the films for fear they’d ruin something but I have read a lot of articles passing the trilogy through the filter of Christianity and it’s a nifty experiment to try the next time you’re watching the flicks. It’s all there, the best elements of the old stories. Gandalf is a servant of the secret fire and dies fighting evil and defending his friends only to be “resurrected.” Gollum/Smeegle is all about forgiveness for sins and how it’s never too late to make the change back to good, etc, etc.
I reckon one can say the same about any film but given Tolkien’s background it stands to reason these flicks would be a bit more imbued than others.
OK, enough about long-haired geek flicks. And Happy New Year.