SLAUGHTERED!

Rating: 6/10 (27 December 2002)

SLAUGHTERED! Tolkien would sue from his grave if he saw this film! This is an exact description of what the filmakers did to J. R. R. Tolkien's masterpiece! In order for the film to become liked from the general public, the film was made in to a typical action love story. Poor Aragorn became a punching bag by adding all the extra action with the woolf riders! The book had a nice flow of events that was disturbed by the extra footage on the relationship between Aragorn and Arwen. The battle of Helm's deep was a tragedy since the director thought that it would sell more if the elves sent reinforcements while he increased the orc force to 10,000. Another deviation from the book was Frodo's trip to Osgiliath. This was totaly unnecessary ( i think they did that to increase the film's length) and as an effect it had the total destruction of Faramir's character ( HE didnt try to take the ring away, instead Frodo offered it to him and he denied). In the book, Faramir was meant to right the wrong his brother made ( i see him as a good version of Boromir). I think that you had enough of my wining so I will talk about the film's positive side. The Ents where GREAT! The film caught their characteristics perfectly! The gate of Mordor was GREAT! And finally the oliphant was nice! After measuring all the facts I decided to give this film a 6.