Lord of the Rings

I imagine that this is a fairly successful translation of J.R.R. Tolkein's work to the big screen, insofar as it's precious, pretentious and full of annoying lines like "Rest now, for you are weary from sorrow and toil." Also, every 20 minutes the band of adventurers is in deadly peril with no hope of escape, and lo and behold yet another Deus pops out of yet another machina and saves the day. On the other hand, the Howard Shore soundtrack is really atrocious. Imagine John Williams, then multiply him by John Williams, and you get the idea. Plus, the ever grating Enya wrote some original songs. And the hobbits, well, they're supposed to be small, so every time they stand next to a full-size person, they're either replaced by child actors, or oddly foreshortened by camera tricks, or just computer animated, and the transitions are not smooth. The sets are gorgeous, though, and I think if you had never seen a movie before you'd find this one dazzling. My advice: Bring the kids, bask in their wonder, and then leave about halfway through when they start to get bored and cranky. (By the way, I am a complete churl and pretty much everyone besides me loved this movie.)