Pretty to look at, but otherwise empty

Rating: 5/10 (31 December 2003)

This film, like its two predecessors, is pretty to look at but emotionally sterile and ultimately a colossal bore. The fault isn't with director Peter Jackson; the problem lies with Tolkien's weak, silly, and juvenile material. The characters are poorly developed; you don't know who they are and therefore can't relate to them or the incomprehensible story. It doesn't help that their names all sound the same, and that once you've seen one male character with long hair, a beard, and a name that seems to consist only of vowels, you've seen them all. The characters, places, and battles all have a sameness to them that just leaves the viewer numb. After a while, I lost track of who was fighting whom, or where, or over what.
The character of Gollum surpasses even Jar Jar Binks as cinema's all-time obnoxious character.
Ultimately, it's big, loud, expensive fluff, masquerading as masterpiece. Two stars, assuming that you can manage to stay awake for the entire film, which is something I wasn't able to do during the first two installments of the trilogy.