Return of My Nutsack

Okay, I saw Return of the King last weekend, and have been meaning to write a review. I had better get this shit out of the way before I become even more apathetic towards Lord of the Rings than I already am. There are maybe a couple of minor spoilers in here, but that's about it. Odds are they won't be spoilers until you see them in the film, assuming of course you haven't seen it already or don't know what I'm talking about from the books.

Oh, I will spoil this: the good guys win in the end. The bad guys are vanquished.

First, some background. I have no sort of emotional attachment to LOTR. I didn't read the books when I was younger. I tried reading Fellowship of the Ring before it hit theaters, but I just couldn't get into it. Fantasy worlds of elves, Hobbits, and magic. I just don't get a hard-on for stuff like that, unlike the no-huddle offense. Speaking of offense, this isn't to be offensive to LOTR Dork, seeing as how this is coming from Star Trek Dork. We're arguably the worst kind, arguable because you people will also show up at the theater in costume, keeping the race tight.

No, let's face it, the biggest dorks are people who play the .HACK card game.

Since I've never read the books, I can't come from the perspective of "they totally fucked up the book when they did X, Y, and Z." Again, nothing wrong with having that perspective, I just don't. Despite what a huge fucking nerd I am, I can sort of write this review from the standpoint of a "normal" person. Sort of.

Also, since I've never read the books, if I misspell or mix up the names of any characters or places in the books/movies, it's because I don't care. So no sense correcting me if I fuck up there.

Another thing that may be worth mentioning is how much I fucking hated The Two Towers. That movie was unnecessarily long. It drug on and on, with one chaotic battle scene after another where I can't tell what the fuck is going on. Yes, I understand that battles like that would be chaotic, but maybe that's a good reason to do some shortening of those sequences. Speaking of battles, there's the 83 hour battle of Helm's Deep, which, as I understand it from people who know, did not have anywhere near that much emphasis in the book. I honestly did not need all of Gollum's internal struggle. He's CONFLICTED. I GET IT. I don't need it spelled out over and over and over for me. Finally, I just could not handle all of the fucking dwarf jokes. No, it's actually not because I'm very short myself and I take offense to that kind of stuff. No, I make fun of being short and laugh at short people jokes more than anyone. What pissed me off is that the dwarf jokes comprised all of the fucking humor in that movie. One-trick ponies are even less impressive than my embarrassingly tiny penis.

Anyway, all that should give you a decent idea as to where my mind was at when I saw RotK. At least, where my mind was at in terms of LOTR.

RotK was decent. Just like the first two movies, I will not be buying this on DVD. Not for myself, at least. Still, I'm not cursing the four days I spent in the theater, unlike tTT. The movie was long, but it didn't drag too much. There was fighting, but it was more tightly done than the fighting in tTT. Gollum was still irritating, but now it was because he's a pain in the ass as a character, and not because they're using him as a device to treat me like a baby. There were some funny parts, and they weren't a bunch of fucking dwarf jokes. Naturally, there were some good effects and visuals, but there had better fucking be for the money they poured into making the film.

Whoever the actress is who plays Eowyn is one of those women who is so gorgeous that you can't even stand it. Yeah, Liv Tyler is hot, too, but most of the time she's on screen all I can think to myself is "Damn, her father is one ugly woman." Eowyn wins the battle of the hot women. It was nice to get to see her kick a some ass, too, in addition to standing around, crying, and looking hot.

Speaking of hotties, we need to talk about Legolas. Ladies, I can totally see where you're coming from with this guy, because I found myself in the theater on the border of homoerotic fantasy over him. That is one fine piece of elf meat right there. If I were to ever have a threesome with two guys and one girl, I'd want him to be the other guy. Fuck, how about a three-way with him and Eowyn? Hell yeah, I'd take that.

Quick safety tip: STOP, DROP, AND ROLL!!! YOU FORGOT THE "ROLL" PART, AND YOU TOOK THE "DROP" PART WAY TOO FAR!!!!!

One comment made after the movie was that Peter Jackson doesn't know how to end a fucking movie. That point is arguable. One thing that is not arguable is that Jackson thinks he knows how end a movie. So in love with his ability to close out a film, he ended the movie, at my count, 18 different times. For the four days you'll spend in the theater watching this movie, the last day is ALL endings. You'll sit there all day, too, saying "Okay, this is it. This is the end. No, there's more? FUCK."

All in all, I think Bill McNeil would have put it best by saying that this movie reeked with adequacivity. Not good enough to win a LOTR convert, but not bad enough where I can completely ridicule LOTR dork and be home free knowing what a god damn loser I am. It was... Entertaining. Go see it. Not because I'm recommending it, but because you're going to see it anyway. Hell, I did, if for no other reason than to get it out of the way.