THE 'LORD' WORKS IN MYSTERIOUS WAYS 'LOTR' SWEEP NOTWITHSTANDING, IT WAS A NIGHT OF SMALL SURPRISES.

Byline: Bob Strauss Film Critic

It was the least exciting Oscar race in many a year and one of the best.

After all, who wants upsets at a coronation? ``The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King's'' unprecedented 11 for 11 sweep at Sunday's 76th annual Academy Awards may not have been entirely expected. But it wasn't so strange for a year that everybody knew belonged to the concluding chapter of the Hobbit trilogy.

Winning director Peter Jackson's crowning achievement was also the first fantasy film ever to take home best picture honors. New Line Cinema, which financed the risky three-movie venture, won where it really counted - at the box office - as well as at the Oscars. That it was one of the genre's greatest accomplishments made the grand slam particularly satisfying.

As television host Billy Crystal pointed out following Jackson's acceptance speech, the most amazing ``Rings'' thing of the night was that the barefoot Kiwi wore shoes.

Although he and Bill Murray were neck-and-neck throughout the whole awards season, ``Mystic River's'' Sean Penn could hardly have been overlooked for the greatest work of a great career (twice over; the second best-actor performance of 2003 was Penn's in ``21 Grams''). And he made the political statement we'd have been disappointed not to hear with a quick, sweet joke; as any of us who have ever had the pleasure of meeting Penn know, that's as much his way as is his refusal to play the Hollywood game.

Best actress winner Charlize Theron had been the frog princess all season, getting ugly in ``Monster,'' a ploy that worked for Nicole Kidman and Halle Berry in the last two such contests. You can quibble about who else among the actress nominees might have done more with fewer helpful gimmicks, but there's no question that Theron also gave it everything she had. She also had the good grace to share credit with her indispensable, unsung co-star, Christina Ricci.

Who could deny that supporting actor winner Tim Robbins did his best on-screen work ever in ``Mystic River''? (Sorry, ``Shawshank'' cultists, but he did.) It was a second lead, of course, but still, the psychic pain and self-preserving shrewdness of an abuse survivor has never been portrayed better.

As for ``Cold Mountain's'' supporting actress winner, Renee Zellweger, well, uh, she's a nice person and she's been due. Enough went to the right nominees for us to feel charitable toward the one that made us laugh the most.

The ``Return of the King'' sweep began early with the night's second award presentation for art direction. It's true that all the other races the ``Rings'' sequel took - costume design, visual effects, makeup, sound mixing, original score and song, film editing and adapted screenplay - may not have gone to the most deserving candidates. But who wants to begrudge the greatest production achievement of the last three years anything at this point?

Sofia Coppola's win for her original ``Lost in Translation'' screenplay set another almost-record. Now, along with the equally gifted Hustons, hers is only the second three-generation Oscar-winning family in history. Sounds like more royal business, and who better than the ``Godfather'' clan to pull it off.

In other predictable news, ``Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World'' won two out of 10 nominations, for cinematography and sound editing, categories it wasn't competing in against ``LOTR: ROTK.'' Sounds par for the course for a Peter Weir film.

And while we're talking courses, kudos to the academy voters for staving off their sentimental tendencies and not allowing the least-impressive of the major nominees, ``Seabiscuit,'' to even place or show.

``The Barbarian Invasions,'' the only foreign language film nominee anyone has seen, won. Change the stupid rules for this category, like we say every year. Next!

Documentary feature nominees were all about equally interesting and flawed. More expectations confirmed, though: Errol Morris, director of winner ``The Fog of War,'' has deserved recognition for some time now. And he made the closest thing to a political statement in his acceptance speech. It paled, though, compared to Michael Moore's incendiary performance in the same position last year ... not to mention Moore's parody of it in Crystal's opening montage this time around. We're still yawning.

``Finding Nemo''? Never any doubt. Nice as ``Triplets of Belleville'' was, it was both too eccentric and not quite as well done as its more popular competitor. Too bad the unheard-of ``Harvie Krumpet'' beat out the Disney/Dali ``Destino'' for animated short, though; a thank you to the Australian guy's boyfriend was hardly the shocker a Roy Disney acceptance speech might have been.

Frankly, there were no shockers. Robbins made nice, Penn showed up. The Blake Edwards wheelchair gag was the height of excitement (and we knew it was fake).

But it was that kind of Oscar contest. Dull. Predictable. Historic in a way you could set your clocks to. Mostly decent and often downright correct.

I'll take that over a good TV show any year.

Bob Strauss, [phone]

bob.strauss(at)dailynews.com