Lord of the Rings: Return of the King

Saw that "Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King" film last night.

When the final credits started with the words "The End", I can only report that I was suffused with a great and abiding relief: I urinated and then started facing up to the fact that the films are shit; and, that it is now time to start attempting to forget about the whole sad sorry mess.

I wonder ... is it a sign of becoming an old, embittered person that I find within myself an anger? That the scriptwriters of RoTK had evidently not read all of the book? That they had at best only a faint idea of what the bits that they HAD read were about?

Am I expecting too much of the entertainment industry for wanting more than a series of crappy CGI inserts separated by shots of pretty people gazing sheeplike in the general direction of the camera?

Special mentions

Cate Blanchett as Galadriel
Rumours persist that Cate's entire direction from Peter Jackson was, "play it like ... SPOOKY... imagine that you are in the matinee panto at Bognor Regis. PRANCE more." Cate prances with the ease of a consumate professional.

Liv Tyler as Arwen Evenstar
Liv and Mr Jackson are both of the opinion that the best way of allowing the audience to get inside Arwen's character is to give the audience with a great view up her nose. This they do. Such is the range and breadth of Ms Tylers talent that this view of her character is communicated with perfect clarity.

Viggo Mortensen as Aragorn
Viggo decided to play Aragorn as a man deeply troubled by pains in his bowel. At the end, with his hair combed, he looks marginally like Prince Valiant. He should win an Oscar ^tm.

Hugo Weaving as Elrond
The script of the Lord of the Rings saga requires that someone explain shit of a lot. At a guess, I would say that Hugo, being the least recognisable of the stars and (perhaps) the most expendable, got the shit end of the stick in this department. The garbage that he is required to say, NO actor should ever be asked to utter. Hugo says it. At points, he conveys that he neither knows - nor cares - what the fuck it's all supposed to be about. My hat is raised to Mr Weaving. Should I ever get the chance, I will buy him a beer.

John Noble as Denethor
As written by Tolkien, Denethor is a great part, deliniating the growing wreckage of a once mighty and powerful man destroyed from within by the propaganda of the enemy. John Noble attempts to play Tolkien's character using the script provided. This valiant attempt is doomed to failure, since Jackson's vision encompasses the character rather more as an irrational buffoon restaurant critic... or something. The end result of this collaboration is somewhat schizoid. On the one hand, John Noble acts the pants off just about anyone else. On the other hand, the tripe that he uttered had me laughing out loud rather more often than was, I think, intended.

I will admit to being at a loss as to what to make of Denethor as the film unfolded. It seemed as if the changes elsewhere in the story had created dissonances through the overall fabric, which had to come out somewhere. Rather like suddenly discovering that there is a huge bubble in the middle of your carefully laid lino floor. Perhaps, I thought, there was just so much happening on the set that no-one really noticed how fucked up the writing was where it concerned Denethor.

Perhaps, I reasoned, Peter Jackson had been so taken up with picking exactly the right embossing for the cups in the encampments at Rohan that the character of Denethor had sort of slipped his notice and had somehow ended up being written and directed by a committee of deaf, mute, lesbian, apprentice butchers from Bogota, Columbia.

Jackson's take on Denethor made no sense, no matter how strongly John Noble acted.

Then Denethor died.

The tragedy of Tolkien's vision of Denethor's withering hands clutching the palantir that caused his destruction, becomes a vulgar fisti-cuffs in a bonfire, followed by Denethor running down a corridor engulfed in flames. Gandalf looks at his retreating flame covered back and intones:

"Thus passes Denethor, Lord of Ecthelion"

Tragedy becomes camp. I almost pissed myself laughing and I spent the rest of the film wondering whether Jackson knew that Gandalf's line was high camp funny and didn't care; or, he just didn't notice because attaining the correct level of burnishing on the armour of Orc #27684 distracted his attention.

Simply, it is a wonder that The Lord Of the Rings saga was made at all. That it was made, functionally with one director, is nothing short of astonishing. That the movies are a sad, sort of endless, misconceived mish-mash of marginally good bits and unmitigated shit should not surprise anyone with any vestige of a brain.

Rating: Spoils the books.

(C)opyright Alex Rieneck, 2004.