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Reviews
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
You eye is happy, nor brain is not
After all those 10/10 reviews I'm sure the reviewers are under the spell of the One Ring and cannot see clearly. That's OK. It's hard to separate stunning visual effects and spectacular action scenes from the fact that hardly anything in this movie makes sense.
The characters are illogical and change in a blink to their opposites. Theoden is an old king who is young. Eowen is constantly scared girl who is knows no fear. Gandalf being in a hurry always has as much time as he needs for rest, talk or walking around. Yes I know, it doesn't make sense. But do we care? We do not. Why? I don't know. Must be the ring. 10/10, says Sauron. I see nothing bad in the movie that does not make any sense.
The ring must be also the reason why we cannot see that story does not go from cause to effect, it just runs ahead without asking "why". We see kings of great nations act as they were rulers of kindergarten, with Denethor as a chief absurd. We see hobbits as small and scared folk facing evil forces of a big world, but the next moment they turn suddenly into superheroes who kill right and left as if they were shorter versions of batman. Do you need a reason? No. Wear the ring and give it 10/10.
It's not that it's not like that in the book. It's that it doesn't make a good, believable story. Story is a nonsense here.
Music is a problem, it is simply obnoxious. Way too much of it, way too heavy and too emotional. In fact everybody and everything in the movie is being extremely emotional, which would be fine if only there was a reason. But we see no reason for all those epic emotions. Characters jump from one exaggerated state to another, but we don't know why. Why is this guy suddenly so afraid? Why is he suddenly not scared any more? It should be a good reason, good enough reason, so we can relate and believe. We see no reason here, but we accept it. Why? I don't know. Because we still are wearing the ring?
Well, I'm not. So I can't submit to the charm of a story that makes me sleepy every time I watch it. I just can't buy it, the story line is so badly built and characters are so shallow and unbelievable. The only exception is Gollum. He is logical, his reasons make sense, his motivation is strong. He's solid.
All the romanse in the movie is completely unnecessary. It is long, very long and very static. It does not add anything to the story, ironically if you rewind all those long moment of people looking at each other repeating predictable frazes with faces of stone and super-heavy music, the movie is better. Try it, just for the test.
But I agree that Return of the King is the best part of the trilogy though. Also, the visuals are stunning, battles epic (maybe too much, as everything) and special effects. It deserves 5/10, obviously.
But a movie is a story, most of all. It should be. And this story is simply not told well. It looks good. It forces you to believe it is a story. But it's simply not good.
If you don't believe me, try to watch it without wearing the ring next time.
Proud (2004)
It's not a movie - it's a commercial
A story about most interesting times told in a most uninteresting way.
The movie feels more like a political propaganda than anything else. Awfully primitive characters, boring lines full of tearful speeches and excessive use of voice-over just add to the effect. Characters are so simple and so wonderful, always smiling, clean and nice, so perfect in every way that it's almost a parody. There is hardly anything happening in the movie. No twists in the plot, no surprises. Characters are either good or bad, like in a child book. No room for dilemmas. Nothing to think about, no challenges for the viewer. Everything is obvious.
Racism is bad, patriotism is good - that's basically the entire movie. I'm not kidding, it's all.
It's as if the script was written by 12 years old idealistic American boy. It's not a movie, it's a commercial.
So, if you didn't know before that racism is bad and hate movies to make you think or give you hard problems to ponder about, then by all means watch "Proud".
In any other case stay away. It's a complete waste of time.