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I saw the movie last night and am still digesting way too many conflicting impressions to write a coherent review. However, I can share the one thing that bothered me most - too much recycling!
I wasn't expecting a true rendition of the book and had heard enough to expect similarities to the LotR movies. However, I had hoped that this would be a work of its own. Instead, it was, as one reviewer said, "LotR 2.0". Aside from the Dwarf theme, much of the music was taken verbatim from LotR. Some echoes were to be expected, of course, since Shore worked with the leitmotiv principle, so when characters and places there were included in the previous films show up again, their theme is repeated. However, I would have expected more variation on those themes, and more distinctive original music. Musically, it feels like the fourth movie in a series. I do like the Misty Mountain Dwarf theme (though it is often used like the Fellowship theme was, with epic orchestration).
Not only that, Jackson recycled many of the iconic images he created in LotR. A "fellowship"? Check. Running single file across a narrow subterranean bridge? Check. Gandalf facing a huge foe there? Check. A ring flying into the air and falling down upon a hobbit's finger? Check. The quotes may be intended as an homage, or used with tongue-in-cheek irony, but seeing the same images again took me out of the story.
All in all, this felt like a fan fiction movie of the original trilogy! Both music and images were excellent in LotR, so I know Shore and Jackson are capable of more than they produced here. That is the source of my greatest disappointment in this movie.
Positive impressions will follow when I've had time to sort it all out...
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'Mercy!' cried Gandalf. 'If the giving of information is to be the cure of your inquisitiveness, I shall spend all the rest of my days in answering you. What more do you want to know?' 'The whole history of Middle-earth.. .'
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