Films featuring
David Wenham

300

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I was half-tempted to write this entire review in all capital letters, the ol’ interweb’s equivalent of shouting, since that is how virtually every line of dialog is delivered. Watching 300 is similar in effect to being beaten over the head for two hours by a large, very drunk, very angry man. Make that several very large, very drunk, very angry men.

I loved it.

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The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

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There’s little to say about Return of the King that I haven’t already said about the first two installments in Peter Jackson’s trilogy of Lord of the Rings movies. To my mind, it inherits the same virtues of the previous two movies while bringing the cycle to an epic and satisfying conclusion.

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The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

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The middle entry in a trilogy often has the hardest job, picking up where the first story left off and leaving enough for the final part to build on. In other words, it has to hit the ground running, assuming you remember what you saw a year ago and then leave you hanging two or three hours later. I don’t count faux trilogies like the Indiana Jones movies, which are only called a “trilogy” because there just happened to be three movies. There was, however, no common narrative thread tying the films together, like there is for Lord of the Rings.

Like The Empire Strikes Back, The Two Towers successfully avoids the “middle movie” trap. Continue reading