Stunning visuals but story leaves to be desired

Rating: 8/10 (21 December 2002)

Quote: The Good: In terms of cinematic and visual scope - astounding. The camera sweeps and the battles were awesome. I really felt like I was there. Gollum was probably the best aspect of the whole movie (his inner struggle was nicely done). Gimli's comic relief was nicely done too.
The Bad: After watching it, I just kinda sat there going, "ehh...". I dunno, the first one has this magical appeal to me (seen it 4 times already) but this one just kinda fell flat. Maybe I set my expectations too high.
For one, the musical score failed IMO. I could only discern one new musical track... everything else was either from the first or too ambient (Enya-like female choirs)
Character development was nil for the new characters. It was too hard to get any feel for them. It just felt like, "here's blahblah, son of blahblah" and that was it. Grima appeared to come out of nowhere. The King's son also had barely any development and there was one other guy that I had NO IDEA who he was the whole movie (he was always around the King, helped put his armor on).
I could tell that the main focus was the Helm's Deep battle. While that was awesome, the rest just felt kinda shallow and long winded. The first half was especially slow and the last was all fighting w/ no story to back it all up. What was with Gandalf riding in the last scene? Where did he find King Rohan's son? How did Rohan's son's army turn that big??? (in the beginning he said only him and his small legion still fought for Rohan). How did they manage to kill off like the remaining 2,000 or so of Sauraman's troops. Why did that Rohan lady fall in love with Aragorn... they only met for like 2 seconds.
All in all it left me awed but a little unsatisfied. 6.8 out of 10