Sadly, not as good as the trailer

Rating: 8/10 (17 December 2002)

[This review is spoiler-free]
The people who are going to appreciate this film the most are people who have read the books, but only once or twice, and not very recently.
The film is visually stunning, although a bit chaotic sometimes... sensory overload, anyone? But that can't help the fact that this movie, unlike it's predecessor, has several problems.
1) The plot is split, trying to focus on three, sometimes four, different but interwoven plot lines. IF you have read the book, there is no effort to keep concentrated. However, if you haven't read the book it might become very confusing.
2) On the other hand, if you are very familiar with the book, you will be a bit disappointed by the story treatment. Sure, most of the things from the book are in the film, but not necessarily in the same order, or even with the same characters, as in the book. As book adaptions go, this one strays frequently off the path quite a bit. To make matters worse, the changes in the storyline have no apparent benefits or reasons; they just exist. I mean, we all understood why Tom Bombadill had to go from the first movie, no matter how much we hate it. Not so with this film.
3) The characters, with a couple of brilliant exceptions, behave rather odd. Merry and Pippin suddenly mature while Gimli is reduced to an axe-weilding homicidal comic relief and Legolas seems to be very dim-witted in this movie.
4) Although visually stunning, the battle is just too unrealistic. Wait, you say, this is a fantasy movie. True, but that doesn't mean you just can abandon the laws of nature... since this review is spoiler free I won't go into any details, but you can only let a character miraculously survive the onslaught of a gazillion enemies so many times before it get's ridiculous.
So, to sum it up; most of the audience will probably like it, since it had great effects, lots of action and Liv Tyler in a skimpy dress. Fans of the book would do well to leave their brains at the door though. It all boils down to how high expectations you have, and how much you love the book. Ironically, the computer generated characters of Gollum and Treebeard are the best parts...