sadly disappointing

Rating: 7/10 (7 January 2003)

as a fan of the books and a really big movie buff, i was nonetheless disappointed with TTT. maybe because the first one was so excellent, especially the extended version, which unfortunately one can only watch television-size. it seems to me that a pattern in emerging, where you leave all the quiet, but very important, scenes between actors out of the theatrical version, and instead concentrate on the action pieces. but the tenth shot of an uruk-hai bellowing or of women and children looking frightened becomes boring or pathetic pretty soon. and of course there are the story changes: most of them totally unnecessary and not helping the plot at all. i dont mind the scenes between elrond and arwen (although elrond is really painfully miscast) and the conflict of mortality that arwen faces. in fact, those dream-love scenes were a welcome respite from the action pieces. speaking of which, the whole warg-attack was so useless and stupid! it reminded me of star wars, not a good comparison in my mind. and that aragorn drops off the cliff was dramatically ridiculous. not even people who havent read the book will believe that one of the main characters would die like that in the middle of the movie. furthermore it just mirrored gandalfs fall in the first movie, but at the same time belittled that event. i could go on and analyse the whole movie like that, but whats the point? the addition of laborous action pieces seems the main intent, and not staying closer to the book in terms of story-telling. i think its wrong to consider those movies as pure action-flicks that have to cater to teenage boys. after all, the books are very much loved by men and women alike.
so i can only wait for the extended version, where all the really important scenes might have been put back again.... i really love the first movie, but after TTT im sadly pessismistic about part three. the filmmakers left out so many important story-elements, they will never be able to finish the story in any way that resembles tolkiens book!