My nitpicks

Rating: 7/10 (19 December 2002)

Well, I loved the books when I read them almost 20 years ago (and I read them 3 times), and I loved the movie adaptation of "Fellowship." I can understand that some things had to be changed for pacing reasons, and commercial reasons, not to mention political correctness (for example, the Wargs look more like boars than wolves, because we couldn't have our heroes killing wolves, could we?). Frankly, the new stuff thrown in didn't really bother me. I felt a little disappointed that we don't have as much humorous interaction Merry and Pippin and Treebeard, but I can see how Ent-lore might have bored audiences. Also, I thought Treebeard's nose looked silly.
The parts that I really had problems with were the Gollum/Smeagol argument ("I'm not hearing this!"--way corny), and the "Exorcist" bit they did with Theoden (I almost expected him to say "Your mother s---- c--- in Hell!!), not to mention his amazingly quick recovery. Also, they could have made the end of the battle of Helm's Deep more definitive. We see the tide turned, but no real conclusion after all the fighting. Maybe Jackson could have included scenes of fleeing Uruk Hai to better illustrate the victory. And the over-use of Gimli as comic relief, not to mention revisiting the dwarf-tossing gag was somewhat annoying, I thought.
I agree with other posters and reviewers who have said that this feels more like a bridge, or the middle of a great film, than a great movie in its own right. I disagree with reviewers who have said that the huge battle scenes are not true to the spirit of Tolkein. The massive battles, blood, and gore were always part of the original books. Even "The Hobbit," a children's book, has its share of gore and lopped-off goblin heads. Still, I think this movie somewhat lacked the human element of "Fellowship," and the original books.