kris and i saw return of the king last sunday and i’ve been holding off writing a review because, well, i wasn’t sure how i felt about the movie. at first i thought my mixed feelings might be due lord of the rings oversaturation. via the wonders of netflix, we watched the first movie on friday, the second on saturday and went to theatre to see the third installment on sunday. about halfway through the return of the king, i started to decide that maybe i’d heard “frodo!” exclaimed one too many times. why wasn’t everyone else getting tired of the tediousness of the “gollum plays frodo against sam” subplot? and why did it take 10 minutes of battle sequences for some genious to figure that you shoot the big, scary, enemy monster animals in the head? i mean, regardless if they are enormous trolls or elephants, it would seem to be a generally accepted fact that when you’re given the opportunity you should probably take a few shots at the head.

so i left the movie theatre with mixed feelings. it was certainly a very good movie. and the entire series taken as a whole should be lauded, but i wasn’t quiet sure that the third installment really was worthy of the heaps and heaps of praise it was reaping. fwiw, while i wouldn’t go so far as say that i didn’t like it, i do think that i’m more in agreement with tim bray than the vast majority of fans and critics.