Extremely good, fairly long, a few graphical flaws.

Rating: 9/10 (15 December 2003)

I don't think anything I'm posting here will spoil anything, as clips of it were used in the TV promos. As I have only seen this movie once (early screening), any complaints here (though there are few) may become more apparent, or less so, after more viewings.
I thought this movie was very good. A little long, especially the end, which seemed to drag on--cleaning up all the loose ends and giving closure.

I enjoyed the action scenes with the computer generated characters. The notable ones were Gollum/Smeagol, and the spider. They had very good blending between CG action and the human actors. I also liked the close-up shots of Gollum, where his lip motion more correctly matched his speech than in the distant shots (the close-up shots were almost lifelike).
My only complaints about the movie as a whole would be the dragging ending (although it seemed to produce quite a few wet eyes in the audience), a few CG action sequences where the physics did not seem quite correct, or the shots from one angle did not match that of another. Only read on if you wish to see details of my few complaints.
The first of these were the large boulders being hurled from the trebuchets; the acceleration through the lifting and throwing seemed reasonably believable, however the impact of those rocks did not. Only one of the rocks (I'll have to watch again to be certain it was only one) had any tumble at all after impacting the ground, the rest didn't even appear to move any dirt. I suppose the sound effects did a reasonable job of covering for that.
The second CG sequence complaint that I would have is when Legolas is mounting the elephant. Like the scene in "The Two Towers" where he mounts a running horse (swinging up one side, then under the neck of the horse to mount on the other), this section was humorous in it's impossibility. His ascent to the top of the elephant looked worse than riding it's trunk until he could step off.
My third and final CG complaint would be the integration of the ghost army in the fight sequences with live actors. I know that this is a difficult section to perform, but all of the ghost action appears to be happening only in the background against computer generated orcs and other "bad people", instead of trying to place some of those ghosts among the live action in the foreground. Thus, the wave of ghosts visible from the high-overhead shot did not match that of the near-horizontal shots of Aragorn running along the field. The overhead shots seemed like the ghosts were trailing him, and on both sides, the side-view shots only showed them at a great distance over his left shoulder.
Again, I thought the movie was great; it is deserving of all the plaudits it will receive. I only feel that it is fair to bring forth the good and the [little] bad for fair comments.