More impressive than the first

Rating: 9/10 (19 December 2002)

I was very impressed with this movie. It was even better than _Fellowship_. Fellowship was a bit slow sometimes because they had to introduce characters and start building the story. This one took right off from there in full-tilt action and plot progression.
I was very impressed with their portrayal of Smeagol/Gollum and Frodo's relationship with him. They did a nice job emphasizing it as multiple personality disorder, like Green Goblin in Spiderman. I found it very meaningful that Frodo realizes first-hand what a torture the ring is, and what it has done to Smeagol. His pity manifests itself in attempting to help him and save him by reminding him of who he once was. ("It is the name of your true self--you've only forgotten."-ROTJ ;) ) That attempted redemption in Return of the Jedi is strikingly similar to this one, except that this meets with less success.
I only have a small problem with this movie, and that was some of its deviations from the story in the original book it is based on. No spoilers here, but it threw in several things that just weren't in the book. I won't fault that in the movie rating, though, because this is a movie producer's portrayal of it, and the things they changed actually made for a better movie than the book plot would have done.
For those who have read the books, I was surprised to see where this movie ended in the progression of plot, compared to the books. This movie stops well short of where _The Two Towers_ book gets to. It makes me wonder if we are in for a running time pushing 4 hrs. for Return of the King, or if they are just going to cut a lot of stuff out to fit in the end of Two Towers' plot and then all of Return of the King's plot.