Adrenalin overload

Rating: 10/10 (5 January 2003)

What a full on final hour! This was real edge-of-your seat stuff and to be honest I will have to go again to take it all in.
This was great action cinema. I found the contrast in pace of the three threads of the story quite good in terms of keeping your interest, otherwise the tone of the film would have been too frantic.
***spoilers***
Good bits.
Gollum - what a great job was done on Smeagol! There will be no best supporting actor nomination, but it should be acknowledged as a major step forward in use of technology while maintaining the emotional quality of the acting. The nasty, pathetic, tragic nature of this character was perfectly shown and the split personality dialogue was brilliant.
Action - none better. Was a bit much for my wife but I loved it.
Comedy - needed to break up the mood. Gimli lights up a small part of the gloom (second movies in trilogies seem to always be the darkest).
Bad bits.
Not many and frankly I feel that it's a bit picky, but I thought the nobility and tragedy involved in the Ents was not brought out as well as it might have been.
Different bits.
There has been enough said about the movie vs book changes so far so I'll keep it brief.
There was enough battle without the wargs, which were merely an excuse for Liv Tyler and Hugo Weaving to get screen time via a dream sequence. I can see the need, but it was a distraction.
Elves at Helm's Deep. Basically this appears to have occurred to try and balance that fact that the elves had been painted as letting the poor humans do all the work to this point. Fair enough. Also, we needed a character to kill off, as Tolkien didn't really see the need for anyone to die in most of his trilogy, which is a bit silly in what is basically pages and pages of fight and flight. Fair enough again.
Can't wait for number three.