Very good, but not the best.

Rating: 9/10 (22 October 2004)

It's all been said, so I'll be brief. This film was very, very good. but after seeing the first two films of the trilogy, I feel that this was not quite so good, primarily because it seemed to go off track. Having read the books, I was aware of significant changes that the director made which seemed to me to diminish the story.
These changes seemed designed to me to "hollywoodise" the story, so that greater emphasis was placed on the all conquering Aragorn. i actually though he was going to fight Sauron himself at the end! other characters were portrayed unnecessarily badly, such as Denethor. Gollum was treated without pity, he simply became a villainous ghoul. And i shuddered at the bit where Gandalf assaulted an unarmed man with his staff. That was quite simply not Gandalf!
But despite these little disappointments, the movie still rates a still a nine.