Different from the book but excellent in every way!!! Film of the year.

Rating: Null/10 (11 January 2003)

Ok, this is the best movie I've seen for 2002.
The movie completely blew me away. It was an excellent adaptation from the book in my opinion and what really REALLY surprises me is the makers adapted one part that wasn't at all in the original three books (all the parts about Arwen leaving Middle Earth and the facts about inmortality and stuff) but in the apendixes by Tolkien himself (he talked about many things in those apendices, including the love between Arwen and Aragorn, The fates of Elrond, Galadriel and other high elves and some other really cool stuff that just make the Middle Earth world more believable and absolutely incredible). It all fit so well in the movie. I think it was a marvelous work (the book adaptation).
But having read the books some dozens of times (again, if you saw the movie and you liked it, you will love the books much MUCH more dearly) I was surprised by how some stuff was cut out of it. Like the book 2 ends after Frodo was taken for dead after the fight with She-lob and it really made the ending MUCH more intriguing. Then I hated the way Gimli was treated in this movie, making dwarves be such stupid characters and they're not at all (he is not stupid in the book at all)...
One thing I was also very surprised and never thought the movie would make it possible was the change the king of Rohan, Theoden, went through after meeting Gandalf again.... I never thought they could make it appear by such a difference between the before and the after but they did!!
They also picked a really nice actress for the role of Eowyn....Never thought there would be someone to be able to perform such a strong female character without making it look like she was taken from an action movie.

Gollum/Smeagol was astounishing and I think he's the central character in this movie. WHat a great work they did with him.
finally, just one thing that I really wish I could have seen more of is the battle between Gandalf and the Balrog. In the book Tolkien made my imagination run wild with it....wished the movie would have done something like that too.
Well, these are just my opinions...
One more year........hope the 3rd part will be longer (it would be amazing to have a Retur of The King 4 hours long!!!!!) and I also hope they won't cut the final part of the book (spoiler: it doesn't end with Frodo destroying the ring) but also show his coming back to the Shire, the Grey Havens and Sam's return home.
By they way......this movie would be very hard to see (wouldn't understand a lot of things) if I hadn't seen the extra 30 minutes of the extended edition of the first movie.