Completely enthralled

Rating: 10/10 (19 December 2002)

I watched the first screening of TTT in Basel yesterday - and wow, was I impressed!
True, there are things to be criticized and things I personally would have loved to see - but that doesn't change the fact that to me, TTT is an incredibly intense movie! I was captivated right from the start and forgot all about sitting in second row, craning my neck... I loved how each character has at least one moment to shine and that there were a lot of touching and true interactions between them.
If there's one thing to criticize it's that the movie wasn't long enough - I'd have loved to see more of Merry, Pippin and the Ents as well as of Frodo and Sam (there specially more about Faramir). I'm hoping the Extended DVD will remedy some of that... But although I'm really not a fan of big action sequences and therefore didn't expect to enjoy the long long battle scenes, I found myself loving every minute of them, also thanks to Gimli acting as comic relief (admittedly somewhat overdone at times, but that doesn't change the fact that I for one needed those breathers).
Oh, and one more negative thing - how the hell am I supposed to wait another year for ROTK? :)