Oscars 2003: If We Picked the Winners (Best Picture 2003)

2. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King In one of his infamous, undoubtedly cocaine-fueled rants, Charlie Sheen said something to the point that we should either, "Love violently or hate violently". In the case of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, I think I feel both simultaneously. To say the least, I have mixed emotions about the film (as I do with the trilogy). The third and final film adaptation of the series of books by J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King is without a doubt my favorite of the series. Since the whole series is basically a glorified trek, finally getting to the destination gives the film an emotional gravitas and narrative freedom that the others lacked. The sense that we're being continually teased or dragged along, like a jogger on a never ending treadmill, finally ceases and at last, we feel as if we're getting somewhere. With a running time of 201 minutes (3 hours and 21 minutes), like the previous two films in the series, the movie is unnecessarily long, and specifically, its action sequences are too long. While these video game style cut-scenes are entertaining for a time, and they're handled with much craft and confidence, at around twenty minutes of digesting nothing but high-fantasy battle images, your brain begins to feel similar to your stomach after wolfing down twenty Twinkies. In other words, sick and desperately craving something substantive. At times, there really is no other way to describe the sequences other than self-indulgent. My biggest problem with the film though is the trend it started in the action genre that everything had to be gaudy, opulent, larger-than-life, or, at the risk of putting too fine a point on it, "EPIC!". No longer could we have modest, but well executed action films that didn't shoot for the moon. The type of films that were satisfied with being the low-key popcorn flicks they knew they were. Everything turned into an exhibitionist's game of one-upsmanship, like some sycophantic talent show. It is a great film, and I truly enjoyed watching it, despite what my preceding ramblings may have you believe. The Pandora's Box it opened though has cursed it for years now (such as movie studios referring to their future output as "Phase 2", as if they were planning a military invasion) and I sometimes wonder if The Lord of the Rings series was worth the trouble it caused.