WOW!...Need to see it again now!

Rating: 9/10 (20 December 2002)

Hardly a moment's rest in this film!...very little space to sit back and breathe. It goes straight back into the story and the action, introducing the character, Gollum, almost immediately and putting him at the heart of this middle part of the trilogy. So many great points to commend, especially the battle sequences and even more breathtaking I think - the Ents. Aragorn is the great hero of the movie and Frodo, this time, becomes the sad soul or the victim of the film, because of the pain and burden of bearing the ring. The 2nd book was the best of the trilogy, but I'm expecting the third film to be the best of the movies. This lived up to all expectations and was far from disappointing. However, it seemed to be just a little dumbed down for today's audience for two reasons - the complexity of the 2nd book was extremely difficult to put onto film and that the story was so dark, cold, violent and horrific that Peter Jackson felt he had to lighten it up a little with Gimli's frequent comic lines and Gollum's overplayed cute, childlike innocence, which, while ever apparent in the book, wasn't as oveerplayed as in the film. Sad to see that Merry and Pippin have very little screen time in this film. I'm sure the audience would love to have seen more of them, after having become so attached in the first film. Good to see an emotional depth to the character, Eowyn - excellent, although it did overshadow the love story between Aragorn and Arwen. I'd agree with most other reviewers that this film is not as emotionally involving as the first, as it does concentrate more on the action and story development, compared to the first whose main focus was on characterisation and served to make the first film the more moving and compelling of the two. BUT I don't consider any of these criticisms to be faults of the moviemakers. I think they have tackled the most challenging of stories with a standard that is as close to perfection as you can get in cinema. Out of the 2 films, this is the more watchable - I think people will keep going back to the cinema over the next few months to watch this one again and again. Its pacing is much faster and tighter and I suppose it was quite a clever move to end this film much sooner than the incredible cliffhanger ending in the book. Can't wait to see the next one in a year, and I'll add that all other films over the next 12 months will seem disappointing compared to what we are expecting next December! This movie will soon be in the IMDB Top 10, and perhaps Top 5 ?