Great, but not perfect (SPOILERS)

Rating: Null/10 (31 December 2002)

First things first. I loved Fellowship, especially the extended DVD version. I bought the BBC radio play on CD, to see what happened next and then i watched this. The first thing i was a little disappointed with was Gollum. His voice mainly, it was much better portrayed on the BBC play. What happened to all the lisping and stammering????
Since watching this i've started reading the books and i'm currently in the second half of Two Towers.
I've found that whereas Fellowship followed the crux of the book pretty well Two Towers has rather a lot of "artistic licence".
For a start all the stuff about Aragorn falling into the river and dying and being brought back by Arwen - totally made up!!!! I've got past the Hornburg/Helms Deep bit and this doesn't happen. It appears Peter Jackson decided he wanted to concentrate on the Aragorn/Arwen/Eowyn love triangle and this was merely a device to focus attention on it.
Also in the book some dispossessed Men are allied with Saroman and the Uruk-hai whereas in the film Saroman is committed to destroying all Men. I just think that the screenplay shouldn't have deviated this much from the book.
The film is brilliant visually as was Fellowship, but it is just not as good as i thought it would be - Fellowship worked better as a film, and i'm particularly disappointed as the Radio play of Two Towers was by far the better of the three parts.
Maybe the extended DVD will be more satisfying.....