Good, but could be better

Rating: 6/10 (1 June 2014)

The acting is good, the scenery wonderful. The score is dramatic, but compositionally weak.
Given the generous length of the film, I feel more could have been achieved. It was a good idea to cut Tom Bombadil and Goldberry, but the barrow wight should definitely have been included.
Upgrading the ring of stones on Weathertop (book) to the "Great Watchtower of Amon Sul" (film), may seem more dramatic, but is actually very stupid for several reasons: It was feasible as a ring of stones whose purpose would be presumably religious, but as a fortified watchtower, it's in the wrong place. Apart from being on the one hand man-made but on the other, located far from man's territories, there's nothing in the area for it to defend except itself and what little credibility it might have therein is shot to pieces by the film itself when the ring-wraiths saunter up the hill and waltz into it.
Apart from that it follows the book reasonably well and is an enjoyable film - the better of the three in the trilogy. The journey through the mines is particularly exciting. In regard to the music, there are two reasonable choices in any score: Either you make good music that is memorable or you make the music fit the action like a glove so as to be almost indiscernible from it. This score does follow the action but clumsily and bluntly to my taste. The themes are nice enough - but they are clumsily used and naively orchestrated. The fact it won an Oscar caused me to review the other nominees and sure enough, the first Harry Potter - a brilliant and memorable score, by the amazing John Williams, was also nominated in 2001 but surprisingly didn't win. IMO, a catastrophe for the academy, whose credibility is lowered into ridicule by this unconscionable gaffe. Consequently, my next move was to review who is currently on the music panel for the Academy. It appears that voting is by all members in a genre. Unfortunately, the three examples currently given for music members include one rock singer (Bono) and one country/rocknroll guitarist (T-bone Burnett) - not very encouraging qualifications for film score judging I would suggest!
In order to be constructive about the score - my suggestion for the main theme would be to slow down the melody to provide more space for development so that it isn't merely repeated as is. An example of this technique can be found in Mahler symphony 5 movement 4, where the melody is slowed to a trickle to allow variations and alternative harmonies.