Yes, but what about the start? And the end?

Rating: 9/10 (28 April 2010)

The central part of Peter Jackson's 3 part adaptation of Lord of the Rings suffers, inevitably, from the fact that it doesn't have a proper beginning (unless you watch Fellowship of the Ring immediately beforehand) or end (unless you watch Return of the King immediately afterwards).
What it does have, however, is Gollum, an extraordinary creation to the joint credit of voice and movement artist Andy Serkis, dressed up on screen by the amazing work of Weta Digital, Jackson's in-house digital effects team. What results is what, at the time, was the most convincing wholly digital on-screen character yet seen. Even more extraordinary, the movie Gollum acquired an element of pathos which his creator seemed unable to give him on the page. Gollum's actions are driven by evil - Gollum himself is tragic: Tolkien said this, but I think he must have disliked Gollum, because I always felt that he was unable to translate the truth of this onto paper. Yet Jackson and his team manage to.
This film, ultimately, though, chronicles the trials and tribulations of the separate elements of the Fellowship as they move onwards, introducing the Riders of Rohan on the way, and culminating in the epic siege of Heml's Deep, something of a smokescreen to conceal Frodo, Sam and Gollum creeping quietly ever nearer to Mordor.
As with part 1, the casting, performances, pacing and look of the film are flawless.