for the most part, the final installment of the lord of the rings trilogy was good. the battle scenes were spectacular and the computer graphics were amazing. however — and this really isn’t in the hands of peter jackson or anyone else working on the film — i found the ending to be a bit dragging. this is mostly tolkien’s fault, i guess, since he wrote the damn book, but it really was grating on my nerves to see frodo and sam smiling at each other after three or four fade-outs that make you think the movie is finally over. but it’s not. it drags on for another half-an-hour.

viggo mortensen looked quite smashing as aragorn, since he usually looks like a creepy pervert in real life. legolas was, well, legolas: climbing large animals, shooting many an arrow into people’s faces. and was there ever a scene where sam wasn’t crying or where frodo wasn’t as useless as a clipped toenail?

as i mentioned earlier, the battle scenes were simply astounding. i found myself really nervous during some parts and almost cheering during others. i thought the whole “dead army” idea was sort of a cop-out, but — meh — that’s just me. i also thought the insight into sméagol’s life before he became gollum was interesting, along with his whole mutation process.

on a side note: i’m thinking, now that lord of the rings is over, that ian mckellen should really consider the role of albus dumbledore for the next harry potter movies. he is much more similar to richard harris than michael gambon. and he would even get to keep the cool white beard!