I agree with David. I think the LotR films held up fantastically as *films* and really were about the best adaptation of an epic book to film I can think of. I have a tremendous amount of admiration and respect for what Peter Jackson pulled off. And to believe his rise started with obscene puppet shows...
On the other hand, I thought Troy was a failure as a *film*. Poorly written, it suffered from Wolfgang Petersen's "grand spectacle over the story" approach (Petersen is very talented at film logistics, which presumably was why he was chosen, but he tends to skimp on the story in his films unless they are something that personally interest him - explaining how the director of Das Boot could also create such big budget nonentity films such as Outbreak and Air Force One).
Finally, I was surprisingly entertained by Van Helsing. I thought it was a comedy in the best tradition of Abbott and Costello meet Frankenstein. It was, wasn't it?
Jeff
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