Digital animation used correctly

Rating: 8/10 (21 November 2003)

I have seen a string of great movies, Spirited Away, Punch Drunk Love, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. It has been a great movie every week. I am happy to say that I found another great movie. The special effects were beyond amazing. The best characters and effects were the trees. The attack on the evil wizard made people cheer in the theater and made the hairs on my neck stand up. Also the computer generated character Gollum/Smeagol is how a computer-generated character should look. Director used the perfect mix of organic scenery and computer generation. Unlike Star Wars that had fake looking scenery, LOTR 2 has beautiful mountainous scenery of New Zealand, where the film was shot. And the digital animation was not cheesy.
Some complaints: The flashback love scenes between Aragon and Arwen were unnecessary, I guess it was trying to show that her love got him through tough situation, but I thought it was annoying. Also, the movie just seemed like one big battle, but when I read the book it did not feel like that. I know a major part of the book was the impending war, but there were just too many fight scenes. Were these fight scenes added because of complaints that there was not enough action in part I? I don't know, but it just seemed like the movie was a constant action scene, and the book did not have that feel. 8/10