I liked this movie a good deal, but here's a list of things that bothered me: ***SPOILERS***

Rating: 9/10 (6 January 2002)

ALL comic relief moments, which were few, were unable to get even the most distant grin out of me or even a giggle out of the audience. C-3PO and R2-D2 were way funnier than Merry and Peppin.

the fight scenes in Moria went on a bit too long. The firey monster looked way hokey and fake.

the dwarf Gimli, played by John Rhys-Davies a.k.a. Sallah in INDIANA JONES, and the blonde archer played by Orlando Bloom were completely useless in the film. Barely said or did anything.

I can't really criticise the movie itself for this, but Gandalf's death felt simply wrong. I know it must've happened in the book too, but I was really upset by this event and it almost made me lose interest. Although I admired that this event almost moved me to tears, which is a sign of good character development, it p***ed me off, simply. In STAR WARS it felt right and logical that Obi-Wan had to die, but here it felt like they'd killed Han Solo right away. He was the most interesting and engaging character and now we'll never see him again. Too bad.

All of this said, I couldn't find anything else bad to say. I enjoyed this movie a lot, and it's already in my top 20 list of favorite movies. It shows that you don't need to have read Tolkien's books to enjoy this movie. I gave this movie a 9.