Bad changes + parody + magnificence = quite ok.

Rating: 10/10 (25 January 2003)

Making a good film of an epic the size of Tolkien's LOTR, is a difficult task. In the Fellowship Jackson pulled it off, but TTT, although quite ok as a whole, is full of questions for me.
First of all, when the changes in the plot of the Fellowship were justified, it is difficult for me to accept a lot of them in TTT. Rohan looked nothing like Tolkien described it, with Edoras looking like a poor village situated in not even remotely similar geographical surroundings. The jokes were sometimes a bit out of place; (Spoiler!) e.g Gimli's and Legolas' `shall I find you a box' joke - extremely poorly acted by Orlando Bloom and a joke that did not correspond to the mood of the whole scene really. Faramir had gone through a personality change - one of the most unfortunate changes of them all, as Tolkien's Faramir was quite the opposite of Boromir and as such very believable considering the family problems behind it. And ents, although quite good visually, were not interested in anything, thus resulting in a very weak story line. Was it really necessary to make such changes to make the situation look more desperate and difficult?

And of course (Spoiler!), the arrival of the elves to Helm's deep?!? Come on! Of course, this story line is surrounded by more controversies than I'd like to describe. In the Fellowship they wanted to help, in the beginning of TTT they didn't and left for Valinor, but in the end showed up in Helm's Deep anyway? Where's the logic to that? Or is it just some extremely complicated and unsuccessful way to show the inner struggles of Elrond?
In addition to Faramir's personality change, another one that bothered me already in the Fellowship was Aragorn's indecisiveness. Reading the book, Aragorn was always aware of his role and his task, with his whole life being a preparation for the LOTR action. Although in the `original' version of the Fellowship this change is not so pronounced, the director's cut makes it even clearer. Such change, although not a very good one, adds depth to the character (as do Aragorn's conversations with Arwen and Elrond in TTT, which were good, no doubt in that) and certainly does make the movie more dramatic.
And of course, I'm really sorry for pointing this out and maybe it is a result of my twisted sense of humor, but some of the scenes seemed like a parody of something I've seen before. (Spoilers!) Faramir &co fighting the Southrons and oliphaunts looked like Robin Hood and his merry men. Elf troops looked like coming directly from a Star Wars movie. The orc running to the wall of Helm's Deep with the aim to blow it up and other orcs cheering along, looked like a ridiculous mix of lighting the fire during the Olympic Games and some teenagers' movie with the compulsory slow motion scene of a football game.
However, there were quite a lot of simply magnificent things. The landscape was absolutely breathtaking. The emotions behind actions were well justified, although for someone who has not read the book some of the things may seem coming from nowhere and thus not logical. Aragorn-Eowyn relationship was intriguing, and well played by both actors. (Spoiler: there is a wonderfully played and cut scene of the meeting of Legolas and Aragorn in Helm's Deep, when Legolas returns the jewel - look at Eowyn's face.) Gimli and Legolas were as stylish as in the Fellowship and made a wonderful duo. The cast did a very nice job indeed (with a couple of exceptional scenes) despite the `one-liners' tendency in the script. Gollum was simply brilliant - the way his split character and the inside good vs bad fights were depicted made some of the best scenes in the whole film. And the jokes, of course.
Well, I could go on for quite some time with this list, but in short, the movie was quite ok. Although not an improvement compared to the Fellowship, it's certainly worth seeing, and probably the more you see it the better it gets.