Much different than the book I remember.

Rating: 8/10 (2 June 2003)

When you see a film which is based on a novel, or anything else for that matter, you must understand what you are seeing is the Director's version of the book; they're image in which the book gave them. Therefore, this is Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings, not Tolkiens. Whether or not Tolkien would have like this would be up for arguement. But Jackson makes a lot of assumptions and conclusions on the history of Middle-earth and weaves his movie around that instead of drwaing what is told directly from the book. For example, Aragorn and Arwin, with one of them falling off the cliff. This is not mentioned in the book, but is an assumption which Jackson has made. While this film does great to draw in action fans and war fans, and does well with great shakespearian style acting, (those are its high points), it fails at portraying the book from my point of view. Though he does well at portraying the competitive friendship of Gimli and Lagolas, he steals away from the portrayel of orcs as horrid and powerful beings. He does not do well at balancing the two. He also misses out on a lot of the imagery the book conveys. But if you haven't read the book, these things won't stop you from enjoying a pretty good movie. It's much better and much more entertaining than the first movie he did.