The Fellowship still rules!

Rating: 9/10 (5 December 2002)

Today I attended a Press-Screening here in Zurich and saw what I have been waiting for almost a year.
It started very good with the fight between Gandalf and the Fire-Beast (I must say I did NOT read the books, but I gave The Fellowship of the Ring 10/10 and liked the whole idea a lot, but I do not know all the characters by name....there are more important things in life). But after an hour I was getting bored a bit, after two hours I was asking myself where is "a LOT more action than in the first one" as seemingly everybody is talking about??? I still think it is a good film, but it was by far not what I expected after the excellent first part.
CGI-Gollum is terrific and beats every cgi-character with dialogue we have seen before. End battle was good but not great (it always reminded me of the fortress attack in Starship Troopers but with orcs). The nasguls are just there but not frightening as they were in the first part. Gandalf has only a small part. Saruman as well. The tree-guys...well they were cool in the end-battle.
Sorry to say that I am disappointed. I will see it again, maybe it helps (I want to like it). If you haven't seen the first one don't bother, you will probably not get it.
Because of the production value and tech aspects I still give it a 7/10.
PS: I think it will open very big, but it will not be as successful as the first. I guess 600 to 700 million worldwide (which still would be very good)