excitedSuspect I didn't like the movie quite as much as most, though that's not to say that I particularly disliked it more. Certainly the parts deliberately there for comic relief (Aragorn skateboards down stone steps on his shield, the Ents talk very very slowly indeed, anything to do with Gimli being short) grated, though I suspect that they will have tried most people's patiences. While I appreciate the decision to make Gollum dislikeably ugly, I really did not enjoy being able to see his spine from the outside of his skin or the fact that it was frequently so curved.
The cinematography was excellent, particularly for the much-vaunted battle scenes that live up to their high reputation. Some of the computer-generated characters weren't quite up to the mark of close inspection, particularly Gollum and Treebeard. The script made a very good job of telling a complicated story, making only the King Theoden arc of the story less clear than it might have been. Stunt work: lovely. Other special effects: also fantastic.
The human actors were generally very good, but the scenes with Ian McKellen's Gandalf and Christopher Lee's Saruman stood out particularly positively. The Sam/Frodo love was portrayed tenderly, though I'm yet to be convinced that it was erotic rather than philial. Oh, and Orlando Bloom was almost head-turningly handsome as Legolas. (I am reminded of the wittiest thing that I have ever seen
addedentry write, when considering a comparison the Rowling and Tolkein traditions: "house-elves are to elves as house music is to music".)Recommended viewing, inevitably, but neither easy (it's so long!) nor comfortable. Somehow I'm not really in a rush to see the movie a second time, which I wasn't expecting.
Now, to be absolutely fair, there were some extenuating factors which meant that I wasn't in the best of moods before going to see the film which may have inadvertently detracted from the experience: I hadn't had as much sleep the night beforehand as would have been ideal, the parental company isn't the most conducive to entertainment, the reclining chairs at the Teesside Showcase cinema seem to recline rather less smoothly than they used to and I could definitely live without them having shown the Jackass: the movie trailer beforehand. Shouldn't fault the movie for any of these, so I mention this only because I might inadvertently have done.
