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And references it constantly throughout this film (along with Jurassic Park, Aliens and E. T).

Made watchable because of the cast, but this feels like a first time director directing bigger talent than they know what to do with. I appreciate that it's an original idea but it's ultimately unsuccessful.

The character set up is pretty weak and there are many actions that feel out of place with the characters A sure sign that they were aiming for entertainment and not interested in the integrity of their (fantasy) idea.

Shot mostly in the dark, it's not even visually interesting. If the 2000s were full of Tarantino copies, the 2020s look like they're going to be full of Spielberg copies.

The animation is very choppy. Cheap, for a reason. A stop-gap in case the writer's strike dragged on.

But if the animation is this cheap then why do we want to see this? There's no spectacle, no reason to see it for the visuals. Akira (from 1988) makes it look like a Saturday morning cartoon in that department.

The animation is not movie quality, the story is good enough, the voice acting is okay, but the thing that really lets it down is the writing. I checked out about 7 minutes in. The exposition was so heavy. Every character greeted the other by their relationship. "Hello cousin", "Hello brother". It was so heavy handed. All of the sudden some new characters appeared. I wondered how are they going to introduce these ones. Then suddenly someone in the room announced them to the room (and the audience), their names, their relationships and history. It was all so lazy and contrived.

I can see why the studio greenlit this. They need to keep Lord of the Rings in the public consciousness. The future of film and theatrical releases were uncertain when it was approved, and, by releasing a film from a high profile franchise (in a low-budget form) they can keep it relevant. And if it fails (it did), they can drop it on streaming to make their streaming service seem relevant and up-to-date.

The problem is, that it's all so average. The writing is bad, the animation is bad. Even for 'free', I'm just not interested. I guess it will get them through this bad patch that films are facing with streaming, followed by Covid and then the strikes damaging theatrical box office. Hopefully this will just be a short stop-gap and we can get back to real risk-taking and bold film-making.

However, I do worry that people have forgotten how to write. But I suppose the intelligence we used to use engaging in well-written stories will be better put to use elsewhere. Certainly this hand-holding story-telling won't be taxing anyone.

Feels more like therapy for the people who have worked on films like this than a comedy made for an audience. They've just unloaded all their frustrations and in-jokes without asking themselves, is this funny to anyone else?

Like the other reviewer (seems there's not many of us watching), I wanted to like this, but just didn't. However, I'm not as impressed with the casting. Richard E. Grant, Daniel Goldstein and maybe Daniel Bruhl seem to be the only one who get the tone. And ironically, like current Hollywood, it lacks any hint of sexual tension that often makes comedy work. And if you're going to leave that out, you'd better appeal to the intelligence, which it occasionally does but mostly goes for low-hanging fruit.

I have a background in film and like films about production, but I found more laughs in Project Greenlight than this. I guess Hollywood really did break their system and have forgotten how to make it work.

Go back to taking risks, with comedy especially, nothing is off limits, but please ask yourself before releasing it, "Is this funny?", "Would this make me laugh?" Because somewhere along the way of all the watering down, it's not translating to the audience at the other end.