As well as knowledge of the book there is the matter of tone, taste and pace...
If you dig the popular vision of romance and fantasy and you know enough to be able to follow the story, you will love this film. But for those looking for a more humanist dimension, the film's ever increasing oscillations between campness and dampness ends up being more irritating than 2.5 hours of Harry Potter's winning smile. I know that good v evil, swords and sorcery and all that is supposed to be grand and epic and outworldly in every way, but the infusion of the emotive pull of 10 Titanics gets tiring and ultimately boring.
I applaud Peter Jackson's avoidance of pedantic adherence to the text that was Harry Potter's big downfall. His adaptations of the plot were necessary, and generally worked very well. No, the big weakness IMO is that there were not enough laughs of the non-camp variety to offset the numerous romantic excursions into which the film descended. An opportunity missed...
Slashdot Mirror
As well as knowledge of the book there is the matter of tone, taste and pace...
If you dig the popular vision of romance and fantasy and you know enough to be able to follow the story, you will love this film. But for those looking for a more humanist dimension, the film's ever increasing oscillations between campness and dampness ends up being more irritating than 2.5 hours of Harry Potter's winning smile. I know that good v evil, swords and sorcery and all that is supposed to be grand and epic and outworldly in every way, but the infusion of the emotive pull of 10 Titanics gets tiring and ultimately boring.
I applaud Peter Jackson's avoidance of pedantic adherence to the text that was Harry Potter's big downfall. His adaptations of the plot were necessary, and generally worked very well. No, the big weakness IMO is that there were not enough laughs of the non-camp variety to offset the numerous romantic excursions into which the film descended. An opportunity missed...