If you're not a fan, this won't change your mind

Rating: 3/10 (1 January 2003)

Like the first film, there's not much to recommend this film unless you're willing to overlook the terrible CG, lackluster script, maudlin direction, and generally bad acting.
Peter Jackson proves that he's not much of a director, simply resorting to slow motion to remind us that something terrible is about to happen (which is generally obvious in the juvenile script), while Howard Shore does the same with the music (if I had to hear the "ethereal" singing one more time during a battle scene, I might have been driven to insanity).
In spite of what people are claiming about Golum, he's no more convincing than the pixies in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.
Worst of all dor a sequel, no recap is done for anyone who hadn't seen the first film. So in most theatres, you're bound to be sitting near a group of people who dragged a friend to this and have to explain what's going on throughout the film (eg. the show we saw had someone trying to explain why Frodo is important to the story even though his character has virtually nothing to do with the events depicted in Two Towers.)
I might only have given this film a 2, but for the fact that the scenes with the Ents were actually reasonably done.
Summary: For fans of Tolkien only.