At Least as Good as the Original

Rating: 10/10 (27 May 2003)

Spoilers Within.

With the absolute genious of the Fellowship of the Ring, this movie had a lot of hype to live up to. However, I can safely say that this certainly does a more than adequate job of doing so. This movie picks up shortly after the other leaves off, both in terms of the plot, and in terms of the brilliance of the acting, directing, and cinematography.
Peter Jackson once again proves himself to be the genious that he is. The first movie was more of an introduction piece, allowing those unfamiliar with the story to get acquainted, and those fanatics a chance to reengross themselves in the tale. This installment follows a much different course, as it focuses on the different internal conflicts of the characters. In particular it focuses on Aragorn, Legolas, Gimlee, and Frodo.
While Fellowship of the Ring followed the hobbits around, this movie focuses more on the three warriors, Gimlee, Legolas, and Aragorn and has a bit more action because of this. The plot does not suffer from this added action, and still retains the balance of action and plot that was so essential in the first movie.
The first movie had fight scenes, but they did not even compare to the fight scenes in this movie. Helmsdeep is one of the most impressive battle scenes in memory. Tens if not Hundreds of thousands of Orcs swarming the castle at Helms Deep fighting against the desperate people of Rohan. It is truly astounding.
As in the first one, the acting is superb, and they do not ever really let the script slip. On top of all of this, the score is once again amazing and builds the suspense in the movie to an exceptional level.
Two masterpieces in a row for Jackson.
Rating: 5 out of 5