Awesome F/X, great acting, some plot holes

Rating: Null/10 (22 December 2003)

In an effort to conserve space, I'll make this shorter than my Chicago review- besides, you know about this film already. Anyway, here's 3 good and 3 bad (spoilers ahead):

Good: - awesome f/x...i mean, i'm spoiled now...even titanic doesnt look real compared to this. gondor looked absolutely fabulous and gollum was unbelievable- he was an actor in the movie! - best cinematography of the year- and i say that loving lost in translation (my next review)...that scene where they light the fires on the mountains- great scene showing how spacious middle earth is...also, intriguing sequence between the battle and Denethor, showing how much he's in his own world... - viggo mortensen stepped it up. he was good before, but now he finally proved that he could act not just in the battle scenes

Bad: - major plot holes. eagles? what, they mentioned them briefly in film 1? plus, major cop-out with the dead army just running over the orcs and cave-trolls and killing them all that easily...what could have been an intriguing near-surrender sequence turned to the cheap way out...finally, no way gollum survived that fall in the beginning of the film to come back at the end - peter jackson didn't want to end it. if he completely obliterated christopher lee's part (in the normal version anyway), then why spend so long at the shire? my God, the audience was moaning eventually (and I went opening night) - what happened to christopher lee? sure, just ignore that important part of the book (my friend Steph informs me that they left out Eowyn- and-Faromir...)

And what's with Gollum saying "my love"?

Overall: *** out of ****