Very disappointing

Rating: 3/10 (1 January 2003)

As someone read the book, I found the film version pretty disappointing. The film maker made a number of deviations from the book, and it is not obvious why. Does Peter Jackson think he is a better story teller than Tolkein? I don't think so. He made plot changes, like having Theoden actually possessed by Saruman (!) and having Frodo actually offer the ring to the Ringwraith (!). Why? He also developed characters differently, which was sort of annoying. All of a sudden, Treebeard was a menacing zombie, Faramir was mean-spirited, and Gimli was comical. Again, why? I thought Jackson did a much better job with the "Fellowship of the Ring." Here he took way too much license. And he puts so much focus into the battle scenes that that the actually story gets kind of lost. Thumbs down!