Return of the King, pt. 3.

I'm not much of a fan of rottentomatoes.com, the site that collects all of a film's reviews, divides them into yeas and nays, and gives an instant yes/no rating of its own. One of the things I don't like about it is that it counts all critics equally - Roger Ebert and Desson Thomson each count the same as critics for local tabloids and obscure websites, and the same as someone who calls himself (or his website) "the Film Hobbit" (and just guess whether or not he likes The Return of The King) - and then denigrates their presumably nuanced opinions into "thumbs up" or "-down," and aggregates all those votes into a single conclusion. (Yes, I know: it's just like what happens to the rest of us on the first Tuesday following the first Monday each November - and look at how well that's done for us.)

Still, rottentomatoes.com has its entertainment value. Looking at some of the reviews - all of the reviews that are counted have links to the full text - can be great fun. A couple of the 3 (of 138, at this writing) reviews that didn't like ROTK quickly disclose that the reviewers either never read Tolkien or don't like movies that last more than two hours. Even some of the favorable reviewers talk more about the strain that a 3 1/2 hour movie places on their bladders than on the movie, or on the choices made as to the fate of certain characters ("Maybe this was her fate in the book, I don't know"), than about the things you'd normall expect to find discussed in a movie review - you know, acting, directing, writing, that sort of thing.