Horrible. They turned a literary masterpiece into a dumb action movie. Every character is dumbed down. Gimli is only used as comic relief. I feel sorry for anyone introduced to Tolkien's world through this garbage. I can only pray they don't ruin any more Tolkien books.

[***Potential Spoilers***] I loved the stunning cinematography and mountain vistas, I'd bet Jackson could do some wonderful tourism films for New Zealand, something a little less ambitious... Another thing that I liked was Gimli's line about dwarf wives and Aragorn's comment about the beards. It's true to the story, but it is information that's in the book, and inserted in such a way as to develop the history that otherwise would be hard to translate to a film. I wish they'd done some of that during all the travel sequences. And the cgi Gollum was pretty well done technically, but watered down scriptwise, and the (gollum,gollum) was overdone. (Fisssssh!) ...... Other than those points, it was horrible. Horrible. A lot of it boils down to some bad decision making, I think - hiring Liv Tyler for what is not just a bit part, but a minor bit part. I love her in the role, but it's extravagant unless you do as was done and rewrite major portions of the story to justify the expense. Another bad decision was building the set for Edoras. Why? For 3 or 4 scenes? What a waste. But the unforgiveable sin is the complete altering of the story line. Someone earlier mentioned pandering to your typical movie-goer's sensibilities, like not sending the women, children and old men to Dunharrow. Or Leg - O - Lamb skateboarding down the stairs shooting orcs on the way. Please. Then there's the whole loony Aragorn/Arwen sequence. Did someone really think this was an improvement over the book's storyline? Send me some of whatever it was you were taking when you made that decision, ok? Instead, we could have had the wonderful scene in Isengard where Gandalf masters Saruman with mere words and not the ludicrous pyrotechnics we were bothered with in the FotR movie. Or to quote from the TT itself 'Wizards are subtle and quick to anger'. Subtle. I'll bet that's even defined in dictionaries in New Zealand. The part I'm referring to is where Gandalf is talking to Saruman in the tower, and Saruman refuses the offer to mend his evil ways and still help, in some small way, those he was sent to help. Then Gandalf says 'Saruman, your staff is broken.', and it breaks, and his power is broken by the same force that reincarnated Gandalf. Subtle, but very dramatic if done right. And why precious, oh why, did they decide to change Halbarad and Aragorn's other Ranger kin into elfses, and then kill Halbarad in Helm's deep instead of later? Why? I'd have thought it much cooler to see riders that even the horsemen of Rohan knew were the better. One of the most dramatic moments in the second book, I think. Lastly, the final ton of hay that breaks this camel's back is the Osgiliath sequence. Faramir deciding to take Frodo to Minas Tirith, instead of showing his better intuition about the ring and allowing them to continue. Frodo offering the Ring to the Nazdrool, right there where there's no real defense to prevent it being taken. I've often wondered if the writers didn't have bad dreams after reading the Cliff Notes of the Reader's Digest Condensed Version for Dummies of the Two Towers and felt the need to rewrite it. I mean, do you really believe a commitee of people I've never heard of before could possibly re-write something that's sold millions of copies over almost 50 years and improve it? Didn't they understand that the whole game was won or lost on keeping the Ring's location and more important, final destination secret? The way the book plays it, Sauron thinks the Ring is in Aragorn's hand after he shows himself as Isildur's heir with the reforged sword that took the Ring. Now obviously I'm one of those that have read the trilogy more than once, which is saying something. I've read tons of books, but not many rate one re-reading, but I've read these more than I can count. Despite that, I can't quite imagine it real enough. I want to see it just like I've read it, or as close as humanly possible. I know it's difficult translating a book into a movie, and we're talking one book, not 3. I have to give the guys credit for being crazy enough to try and pull this off. They certainly did better than the Ralph Bakshi animated movie that only did about the first half of the story. But I was very disappointed by the sudden complete departure from the story in this movie. I had problems with the first one, but they didn't ruin the movie for me. But I'm still glad I went to a matinee and only paid 2.50 to see this dog. … Expand

I fell a sleep it was so boring and stupid....surely a waste of time.

One point for not completely replacing the ents with Arwen. One Point for remembering there WAS a ring. One point for (most of) Gullom talking. The rest of the movie had nothing to do with the book and the huge Arwen/Aragorn intermission almost put me to sleep. I'll only be seeing the ROTK in the hope that Shelob actually makes an appearance (a book late) and eats Sam, Frodo, and whoever wrote the dreadful dialog in TT.… Expand

Face it, the geeks like me who read the books will walk away feeling like we didn't see the two towers but, as posted before, an adaptation. It boils down to this, if you have never read the books, this is an awesome movie. The effects are mindblowing in some aspects. If you have read the books, you will probably not dig it. I have seen it twice just to make sure it wasn't the hour or the mood. I almost walked out the first time and the second i was in and out. Perhaps they will release an extended DVD of this movie, perhaps replacing some things...who knows. Hopefully we will return to the book for the Return of the King.… Collapse

This movie is completely dull. Worse than Fellowship, which was very entertaining. Until the Battle for Helms Deep, this movie moves on in a slow plod. Hopefully, Return of the King will be better.

Terrible...

I know this received a lot of praise, but you really must understand how much failure there is in this, how little bravery, and what a disservice was done to some beautiful epic books. much of the failure is in the screenplay, particularly the changes that were made that fundamentally broke into the characters heroism and strength. i defy any critic who thinks this movie has real power to defend king theoden's posession by wizardry in this book, a posession that is broken by wizardry, against, in the book, his breaking down under weakness and bad counsel and his personal redemption through his will. it is a small thing but communicates the fundamental failure of understanding of itself in this movie. the cast is quite good sometimes. the effects vary from breathtaking to cartoony. the sword fighting sometimes good, but never quite thrilling. the fake deaths keep coming at you. the gollum is good. read the books.… Expand

Just awful! Movie really sucked,what a stupid ring?! No real life and laws. I really dont like this movie.

This movie was SO over rated. It was actually quite bad. The only good acting in it was performed by Golum. Boo!

terrible, terrible, terrible! I'm a HUGE Lord Of The Rings fan and this was an insult! I camped out for 2 nights to see it and when i finnally got in, i was very disapointed! At first I thought it was a joke. But I stayed Hoping it would get better. Not at all. Very much OVER RATED!

By far, worst of the three. it has one great scene, where corpses are submerged in a bog. otherwise, it's wizard of oz on too much pot and maybe some other sh.t. hobbits are annoying as hell, orcs are cartoonishly ugly and stupid throughout, and the good guys are mostly dull. one of the characters is named wormtongue. gee, can you guess whether he's a goodie or a baddie? were his parents mr and mrs wormtongue? peter jackson oughta be renamed toadbrain. … Expand

I was disappointed in this bloated, preposterous, fantasy action movie. The CG characters (excepting Gollum) were the worst cartoonish drivel since Jar Jar Binks of the current Star Wars trilogy. The action was unrealistic, over-the-top. There was likewise no suspense in the action, as all the characters are now playing in "god mode." Not as good as the first, not by a long shot.

I fail to see the appeal of an overproduced, predictable film with weak acting. Maybe the special effects? There is no depth in this film, nor in the books themselves, which somehow have become mistaken with "literature"