I am happy to report that The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King pays off much better than The Matrix Revolutions. Granted, it would have difficult for it not to. I was happy to see the hobbits get to kick some ass, but not so happy to see less of characters like Legolas and Gimli (though they made the most of their time on screen).

The logisitical geniuses who run the local theater had it playing at the same time in two theaters adjacent to each other. You can imagine what it was like getting in and getting out. I suppose it helps them in terms of concentrating the madness, but crowd control wasproblematic, and there was a great deal of congestion getting out. It was also the first time I've ever seen the cleaning crews clean up after a line of people waiting to get into the theater.

One person I went with also had the great fun of becoming line buddies with a very loud-talking guy who'd already seen the movie at a midnight showing and was planning to go back again on Friday. And, as line dynamics often indicate, we let our comrade take one for the team while we did what we could to avoid eye contact with loud-talking guy, lest we get drawn into it. The wingman isn't just for bars.

And, of course, there were many previews:

Spider-Man 2 had a pretty good trailer, nothing too out of the ordinary for the superhero/action genre. I'd either forgotten or not known that Alfred Molina is playing Dr. Octopus. I find that funny for some reason.

Walking Tall is a remake of the 1973 film starring Joe Don Baker as Buford T. Pusser, a Tennessee sheriff who's out to rid his town of corruption. Filling the role of Pusser is The Rock. I'm a little ashamed to say that I want to see this, but I like The Rock's action movie persona.

The Mask 2 - or Son of the Mask or Untitled Mask Project depending on where you get your titles - would be on the short list of Least Essential Sequel Ever. The trailer was bad - some dramatic intoning about Loki that turned into a baby doing some sort of acrobatic flip out of a walker to a standing, arms-outstretched "ta da!" sort of pose. I don't even think they mentioned a title, come to think of it, which bodes poorly. Oh, they've also apparently replaced Jim Carrey and Cameron Diaz with Jamie Kennedy and Traylor Howard (the girl in Two Guys, a Girl, and a Pizza Place).

All I can think is WHY?

The Chronicles of Riddick features Vin Diesel as the title character, who is apparently a central figure in some sort of sci-fi/fantasy clash that involves a character played by Dame Judi Dench. And if that isn't a sentence I never thought I would write, I don't know what is.

It's apparently a sequel to Pitch Black. Not having seen it, the odds of seeing the sequel are long. Very long.

I, Robot had a trailer that was done in the style of an advertisement, but said almost nothing about the movie. I suppose that's the point, but I never really care for trailers that do that sort of thing. I could go to the website, but I can't remember the URL, even though it was prominently placed in the trailer. Guess I'm not geeky enough.

Can I also note that there seemed to be twice as many ads before the movie as usual? While I assume it's because it was the opening night of one of the biggest movies of the year, I fear that it's a trend. The last thing we need is a half-hour of ads and trailers before the movie even starts.