The quest to destroy the One Ring continues.

Rating: 4/10 (14 August 2015)

The party has split, with Frodo and Sam continuing on to Mount Doom. Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli are chasing the orcs that captured Merry and Pippin. Gandalf is flying around naked on a giant eagle (thankfully not shown in the movie) and Boromir's moldering corpse is floating down the Anduin River. From here, the movie follows three story lines; Frodo and Sam capturing Gollum, Aragorn and company allying with Rohan against the forces of Saruman and Merry and Pippin meeting tree-like giants in Fangorn Forest.
I'll be the Negative Nancy here and say this movie sucked. The acting took a nose dive, the sense of desperation that was repeatedly said to be there just didn't click and a major character was all but completely rewritten for some unfathomable reason.
Elijah Wood (Frodo) developed a forced, annoying accent, a bad thing when he is supposed to be carrying half the movie. Sean Astin's (Sam) demeanor shifts toward his two traveling companions were jarring and forced, making Sam seem somewhat bipolar.
As for the writing, there was just way too much going on with far too much attention being paid to the Battle of Helm's Deep and Frodo's encounter with Faramir, leaving Merry and Pippin's time with the Ents seem ironically hasty.
This movie does have good points though. The cinematography was again, beautiful and the acting from several of the cast helped to somewhat mitigate the awfulness of Wood and Astin. While there was a hell of a lot going on, it flows by quickly and is paced well, though it doesn't seem especially urgent...like everyone keeps insisting on reminding us.