Art writes: I wrote to you last year and gave you a heads up on Ebert and Roeper’s review of Two Towers, I thought this year I would do the same again for ROTK.
I can tell you that they both gave it a thumbs up, and that they both felt that the three movies put together are a major milestone in the history of movie making. As with many other reviews I have read, they also thought ROTK was the best of the three (although there was some discussion as to whether or not they might have enjoyed the first two more if they had known more about Tolkien’s writings). They commented on how it was difficult to portray an enemy (Sauron) without a physical form, but that it was handled relatively well.
Ebert made a small complaint (one which shows that he indeed is not into “Tolkien’s writings”) that Gandalf looked too athletic for an old man (jumping up on horses and such) and that took him a bit out of the movie, but then he added that it was a fantasy after all, so maybe he was being too harsh. Roeper liked the fact that the hobbits were more central to the plot than they were in Two Towers (which I thought was a bit odd since he gave the Two Towers a thumbs up, and FOTR a thumbs down).
