This Does Not Improve With Each Sequel, The Second One Could Have Been Better

Rating: 7/10 (10 December 2012)

This somehow did not work for me. If this was supposed to be serious, it was verging on the ridiculous. I could excuse the first one for a little low-brow humour considering it didn't get right into the journey at first, but it was too overdone to at least lighten the mood in a serious context. It also had massive pacing issues, as it either brought everything to a standstill or hurried everything on, and it's suddenly strange how they stray off and bring to your attention scenes of no point whatsoever.
On the positive side, the acting wasn't affected too much. The scenes with either Legolas, Aragorn or Frodo were beautifully done, so I have come to terms with the fact that the acting can still be good even when the pacing isn't. Despite that, they should have taken a few of the characters out, because they were kind of pointless. I liked Gollum (or Sméagol), but I think he was just there for the crazy factor.
Overall, it was good, but was not as good as the first one. This could definitely have been better. Maybe they should just have done two films if there was going to be such a big gap in the middle.