Yikes. I love Lord of the Rings and am a casual fan of anime, so this should theoretically be right up my alley. Alas.
It's unfortunately easy to tell that this story was derived from about five pages - there is not nearly enough here to justify a 2+ hour runtime. That's probably the biggest sin of the movie, which is at least 30 and probably 45 minutes too long. The first half of the movie drags, and this really…
Pretty standard medieval adventure romance type fare that is elevated by the score, good extended sequences of jousting/sieging, and Elizabeth Taylor being astoundingly attractive. Not a ton else to take from this, but it's a decent watch and moves relatively quickly.
Really wanted to like this one a lot but just did not hit the mark. Visually stunning and had some interesting themes and takes on adulthood, choice, knighthood, and nature. Dev Patel is fantastic.
However, the pacing was very uneven, with a lot of the movie really struggling to be engaging outside of the visuals. To be frank I was just kind of bored for a lot of this even though I appreciated the craft and care that went into the movie. The last 20 minutes nearly makes up for it but does not quite pull it off.
I watch The Lion in Winter every Christmas eve with my parents, and it's one of our favorite shared traditions. We are all history buffs, which makes the subject matter that much more entertaining, but this movie is phenomenal even for those without some of the historical context.
The cast is star-studded, filled with all-time greats in their prime giving tremendous performances (O'Toole, Hepburn) as well as younger actors showing their chops in big-time feature films (Terry, Dalton, Hopkins, and…
