Reviews

-----SPOILERS-----

After the long wait, it's here. And it was worth the wait. This is the single greatest, most excellent film in the history of cinema. PERIOD. I cannot even begin to describe the awesome epic grandeur and beautiful character moments of this mega-movie.

The attention to detail and to the small things as well as the big is astonishing in this movie, you see this right off the bat with the first shot in the movie - a worm being placed on a hook.

Minas Tirith is incredible to behold. It's so huge on screen that it's hard to believe it's really a 20-foot model shot in a studio. When I first saw these awesome, dizzying views of the gargantuan citadel, I was just grinning like an idiot. I never thought that 20-foot model I'd seen in behind-the-scenes pictures would look so incredible on film.

Once in Minas Tirith, Gandalf and Pippin meet Denethor. This guy makes me sick. His scenes are so excruciating to watch. When I saw this with my dad I just wanted to hang onto him like a baby during the whole scene where Denethor sends Faramir on a suicide mission.

One of the most ingenious and breathtaking scenes in the film features beacons being lit. One after the other, over mountains and valleys, in a chain that reaches across the entire land. Rohan then masses its army and makes camp in the mountains. Elrond meets Aragorn there, and gives him the reforged Sword of Kings.

From there, Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli make their way to the Paths of the Dead. There, they recruit an army of ethereal green ghosts in a scene vaguely reminiscent of "Pirates of the Caribbean".

As Frodo and Sam continue their trek towards Mordor, we are finally given a good look at Minas Morgul. Nice work by the modelmakers here. It looked way smaller that I had always pictured it, though. As they climb high up the Stairs of Cirith Ungol, thousands of feet above the pass, Minas Morgul begins to look like an eerie green flower on the earth below.

Once they're high up, Gollum manages to trick Frodo into thinking Sam is a traitor. Frodo continues into a cave, where he meets one of the creepiest monsters in cinematic history: Shelob. This thing is really freaking scary. My mom was freaking out in the theater during this scene when I took her to see it.

Minas Tirith is now under siege in the most insane battle scene ever filmed. Although Helm's Deep was more dramatic, this battle makes Helm's Deep look like a day in the park in terms of sheer size. The Battle of the Pellennor Fields is just plain staggering. For miles upon miles, the plains around Minas Tirith are awash in a thick black tide of Orcs. The Rohirrim, who have a knack for making awesome entrances, wash over the Orc legions like a tidal wave. It seriously looks like liquid in the wide angle shots. But that's not enough. The Army of the Dead sweeps in at lightining-fast speed and lays waste to the 200,000 orcs in one quick sweep.

Then Frodo and Sam get into Mordor. This is where the film really takes off and earns its stripes in terms of human drama. (Okay, Hobbit drama). Frodo has been reduced to a quivering lump of jelly by the Ring, and Sam has to carry him up Mt. Doom. When the ring is finally destroyed, we are treated to an apocalyptic chaos of ruin as everything the enemy has made is destroyed with the ring, and Mount Doom pours out an ocean of lava.

The ending of this film is a weep-fest, so bring some tissues. The most powerful moment in the whole film, and one of the most powerful moments in film history, comes when Aragorn is made King, and he says to the Hobbits five words: "You bow to no one". Aragorn and everyone present fall prostrate before the Hobbits.

Not a dry eye in the house.

Go see this on the biggest screen you can find. NOW. This is cinema history, don't miss out.

10/10. Perfect.

***POSSIBLE MILD SPOILERS***

I don't know what thee critics were smoking when they saw this, but they're all wrong. This movie is tied with Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers as the most mind-bendingly HUGE EPIC picture we've ever seen.

The film starts off basically where Reloaded ended. The first fifteen minutes are a bit slow. The "Train Man" is really creepy. We are introduced to a "new" oracle in a way that's almost funny in the way they have to make do with Gloria Foster's absence. The new actress playing the Oracle, however, has all the right mannerisms of her predecessor down.

Then, we are thrown into a battle that is grand, epic, and terrifying on a near-cosmic level. The very sight of the unrelenting tide of HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of swarming Sentinels will send you into utter shock and disbelief. It's simply like nothing you have ever seen.

And then it gets better.

Neo, now blind, sees everything machine-related in orange code. Trinity flies the Nebuchadnezzar to the Machine City, where, after telekinetically destroying hundreds of sentinels in an impressive fireworks display, Neo brokers a deal with the Machines. He confronts the Interface, a machine that speaks in a terrifying thunderous voice that literally shakes the floor with bass, and Neo is hooked back into the Matrix. There, Neo and Smith duke it out in the best hand-to-hand combat sequence ever put to film. Their fight results in whole city blocks being leveled, rainfall being sent back up into the sky, and giant impact craters being created.

Throughout the movie there are many Christ references, as you may well know, such as walking on water, the phrase "It is done", etc.

Agent Smith is by far the best villain ever in cinema history. Hugo Weaving deserves an Oscar for his role, this guy can ACT. The Wachowski Brothers should be given a Congressional Medal of Honor for this movie. I cannot stress enough how UN-FREAKING-BELIEVABLE this movie truly is. Go see this on the biggest screen you know of.

9.5/10

POSSIBLE MILD SPOILERS

This movie was interesting, but it had one problem: It was too short. It ended right when it really was getting good. But if that's how the book went, then so be it. The time-lapse effects and exploding-moon stuff was cool, but there wasn't enough of the latter. But if that's how the book went, then so be it. I won't spoil the ending, but it's not emotional or complex or LONG enough. But if that's how the book went, then so be it.

Industrial Light and Magic did some really cool visual effects on this film - watching 800,000 years pass by in 30 seconds is really fascinating - the thing where the vines over the arbor UN-GROW themselves is really strange to watch.

Morlocks are said to be descendants of humans. Well, they look nothing really like us. If there really is the DNA in human beings to creat such animals, please, God, let my family be an exception. We ain't no cannibal apes here.

This movie seems EXACTLY like a Tim Burton film. In fact, the latter half reminded me instantly of last year's PLANET OF THE APES. Also, Guy Pears looks uncannily like Johnny Depp in this movie (whom Tim Burton cast in almost every one of his films).

Anyway....on with the interesting stuff. This guy invents a time machine. He travels into the mid-21st century, where he goes into a museum and there's this holographic dude with all the information of the Internet at his command. A construction project on the moon has gone horribly wrong and broken it in half. He then goes back into the time machine, but gets knocked unconscious while the time machine progresses for 800,000 years.

800,000 years in the future, people live in these hammock-like scallop structures plastered onto the side of a canyon carved out by the Hudson River, surrounded by jungle which now occupies the area of land formerly known as New York City. The people have gathered the last remains of New York into the walls of a small pit which serves as a teaching center.

P.S. Gore Verbinski directed part of this, and he only gets credit in Special Thanks? Simon Wells must be a snob.

MY RATING: 6/10