it's so big let's beat up on it (for those who've seen it)

Rating: Null/10 (16 January 2003)

There's no need to praise a movie that's currently #12 in the IMDB top 250 -- obviously it's a must see. You wouldn't miss it any more than you would the early Star Wars series (in it's time). So while I definitely enjoyed it, and while I agree with most of the praise re. the computer graphics (wow!) and also some improvement in the acting over FotR (especially Wood's Frodo -- but stop biting your nails, dude, that's a bad habit.) Still I did find some things disconcerting and detracting from the illusion of a sojourn to Middle Earth.
Vaguely in order of ascending distraction:
(NO PLOT GIVEAWAYS, BUT SPOILERS OF A SORT.)
1. Too much panning -- I started feeling like I was on a merry-go-round. The camera never stops zooming hither and thither. Every character and every setting doesn't have to be shown from all angles. This is not The Matrix. Similarly, too much slow motion. And when is slow mo EVER good? (Except in The Matrix.)
2. Too many long battle scenes. This was a defect of the trilogy itself also IMO. (Like many others here, I've read it twice.) Epic stories are about heroes not "history". They could have profited from studying Ben Hur, where battles are well meshed with story development. Anyway, to counter this impersonal aspect, they have all the main characters within shouting distance of each other in spite of the clamor, confusion and scale of the battle -- requiring another suspension of disbelief. And two wrongs don't make a right.
3. Regarding abridgement, the 1st half was confusing. The fact that I read the books made some things understandable, and other things more confusing. The excuse for this, oft repeated, is that there wasn't time to clarify the storyline -- yet there was plenty of time for endless battle scenes which did little to further the plot.
4. Re. Elven/human soft-focus face sucking, another lapse. Here, even a smooch is too much nevermind sticky lips and suspected tongue. It's not Tolkien, and it's not needed. This is about peaceful and brave little hobbits vs. monstrously evil and militaristic wizards. Females of Middle Earth are ethereal and distant and often have magic powers, or at least can weild a sword. You love them, you fear them, but you don't you-know-what them. This is supposed to be an escape from all that.
6. Worse than lip gobbling -- a joke about dwarf tossing! God! Serious gaff. This is magical fantasy. Anything for comic relief? Fine, but don't jar us from Middle Earth into the 70's blue collar bar scene! Note: The Dwarves of Middle Earth are an ancient and proud race of their own. The last thing you want to do is link them with human dwarfism. Jeez. Get with the FANTASY.
7. Explosives! I do not recall explosives in the book, though I admit it been many years since I read it. But this is Sword and Sorcery, not Sword and Chemistry. You see that thing go off? Tell me, if they knew the opposition had high explosives, would they have been yapping about their great Keep? It raises all kinds of questions. Why didn't they lob the explosives into the keep with catapults, or have the black riders drop them from 6000 feet? For that matter, why didn't Saruman just manufacture cruise missiles instead of those moronic Evil Dead part II look-alikes (and where'd they get those growling sounds -- an old Tarzan movie?)
End of gripes.
Star Wars had problems too. And of course there will only be 3 of these, so we don't have to worry about it hanging around the movie industry like a millstone for the next century -- right? Right?