Excellent Film

Rating: 10/10 (20 December 2002)

Generally an excellent film, which, taken as such provides an well paced continuation of the story, whilst at the same time sticking moderately closely to the original book. Personally I can live with most of the changes that Peter Jackson has made, which given the limitations of time inevitable within a film are probably necessary. However I'm not too keen on what he has done to Elrond. In both films he comes across as almost contemptuous of the race of man, and in the new one seems to be emotionally bullying Arwen to give up Aragorn and join an escape of the elves to the far west, leaving middle earth to its fate. As someone who has read the books this is rather jarring as there he is only half an elf himself (his full title is Elrond Halfelven), where his father was the man Earendil, whilst his mother was the elf Elwing, and Aragorn was himself a direct descendant of his brother Elros. Also in the books the elves love middle earth and Elrond and Galadriel only leave it after the destruction of Saurons ring, and the power of their own rings in destroyed. On the other hand as an adaptation where these back-story elements are not mentioned I suppose it could be justified, and maybe Peter Jackson's Elrond doesn't have this heritage. Still, I think it's rather a pity.
Rather more serious IMHO is the changes to the story of Frodo and Faramir.

Spoilers Ahead!!

In the film they have been dragged off to the city of Osgiliath, which is under siege, and where, according to the words of one of the Gondorian soldiers, the east bank has fallen. This implies that Frodo Sam, Gollum and Faramir are on the west bank. This alteration, as well as considerably diminishing Faramirs nobility, as other reviewers have noted, also raises the problem that, when he belatedly realises it would be a bad move to take the ring to his father in Minas Tirith and releases them, where does he release them to? If he leaves them on west bank they will have to find their way back across the river, which is where Mordor is and they want to get to, and as they don't have a boat, and the only bridges are in Osgiliath where they are controlled by the enemy this may be difficult. Also this last point makes releasing them on the east bank any more difficult as well. Tolkien did meticulous work on planning out where all his characters were at any one time in the book, and how they could get to where they were going to, and I think they should have kept with him a bit more here. Perhaps any extended DVD may clear this up, but as it stands it is rather puzzling what Peter Jackson thought he was doing here, apart from showing some, admittedly very good, footage of the battle for the bridges at Osgiliath and attacks by Nazguls on their flying 'fell beasts', (very well done here).
Having said all this, this is still an excellent film, which I will almost certainly see again, as well as buying the subsequent DVD's when they come out. The first film also had its inconsistencies as well, notably why Gimli wanted to go to Moria to see Balin, with his 'roaring fires' etc, whilst everyone else knew it wasn't going to be a very dangerous place indeed, and the timing of the Nazguls turning up in the Shire at the start of the film whilst Gandalf was in Minas Tirith searching through its library, and then Gandalf beating them to Bag End (how??). The battle at Helms Deep, as almost everyone else has said, is stupendously well done, and poor old Gollum is really brought to life here. Other high points are Theodens city of Meduseld, with a fully realised Golden Hall, beautifully done here, Gandalfs showdown with the Balrog right at the start of the film, and even if the fight with the Wargs wasn't in the book, I thought that was very well done as well.
Generally I'm not too bothered by the licences film directors take with their source material, as I still read the books and I can always run much better versions in my own imagination. One of my favorite films is the 1950's version of 'Great Expectations', which takes much greater liberties with Dickens than Peter Jackson has done here, and as someone else in these reviews has pointed out, people don't take Prokofiev to task for the liberties he took with Romeo and Juliet for his Ballet. Even with my quibbles above, it succeeds so well in other places I'll still give it a 10.