[Puke]

i thought they spent too much time hamming things up when they could have spent it developing characters.

the effects were great, the fights were fair, everything looked convincing. most things i expected to be skipped were skipped, and the major scenes i expected to see were there. i guess it met my expectations..

its just that there was so much ham. instead of spending time dwelling on little things or hamming up scenes to try and make them dramatic (and ending up sappy) they could have given that time to a little more dialogue. Gimli and Legolas hardly said two words to each other, when they could have had a constant banter.

its mildly irritating that Aragorn was swinging a sword around when half his character revolved around his being broken, but i guess thats to be expected from hollywood. i hear JRR Tolkien had the same complaint about a script that was written for the book during his lifetime.