Pros: Same as with the second movie. All the external aspects - such as music, set design, most actor choices, etc. The song for Houses of Healing is great and Lighting of the Beacons is a kickass theme. That's literally all we got.
Cons: Also as with the second one, the two main issues we have lie with the story and characters. So we have divided this once again into two parts. Thus, story first. Where the second film didn't have enough material and it dragged on, this one is cluttered and feels rushed, apart from the end(s). This is why linear storytelling does not work here; The Two Towers is empty while Return of the King has most of the action. The writers should have realized that if Shelob is cut and moved to the 3rd movie, then the beginning of Return is too full. Not to mention that they robbed the second one of a fabulous cliffhanger. And don't give us that "but then it doesn't have a proper ending hence isn't a competent film"-crap, the book did it, why couldn't the movie follow? If it was absolutely necessary, then why not end Towers in Cirith Ungol's stairs? That would've at least improved the pacing a little in both movies. Also, remove all the shit that wasn't in the book and stuff that wasn't needed. For example, Arwen's pointless visions (for shit that isn't in the book) and the million different endings (where deviation from the book would have been welcomed).
We have to offer our commiserations to anyone who likes Gimli in the book here. He was allocated as a sidekick in Towers, but here he is utterly foolish. Thank God they kept his character arc, but that's about it. He's only a comedy sidekick here. Aragorn is better here than in the second movie. He's not quite as much of an asshole. Faramir was also surprisingly okay in this one. Apart from the remark that as a youth he was more into imagining slaying dragons than acquiring knowledge. As we've established, that ain't Faramir from the book.
And now to by far our biggest beefs with this film. So this is where they really fucked up Èowyn's character. In Towers she was only a lovesick teenager, here she's also a frightened little child. Her defiance and cold-blooded warrior spirit is completely gone. Instead of giving an awesome and impassioned lecture to Aragorn about his benevolent sexism when he refuses to take her with them, we get "but I luuuuv youuu". Cringe. Plus, did the filmmakers really have to insult us further by making her all weepy-faced over some dude? Get the fuck outta here with that shit.
There are literally too many offences to choose from here. Probably the most egregious to us is the change in her motives. Partially because that eradicates her amazing character arc from the book. But also because it fundamentally alters her personality. She was cold and hard as steel and she went to fucking die in the war. She wanted the stuff that men were allowed and encouraged to seek - like ambition, power and glory. We'd say those are pretty extraordinary motives for a sympathetic female character, especially considering the book was published in the 50's. In the film all we get is "for our friends, Merry!" Kill us now. Now the dialogue they took from the book is in contradiction with her soft character in the movie (the whole speech she gives to Aragorn in the second movie about warrior's glory and dying on a sword). Reading the book for the first time as teenage girls the scene that was most impactful for us was made completely flat and meaningless in the film. Why reveal she's a woman BEFORE she faces the Witch King!?!?!??! That scene is one of the greatest twists of all time. It's even better than Vader's "no. I am your father". For fuck's sake, how incompetent are these writers?
To be honest, we actually disagree with the interpretation that Èowyn is domesticated in the novel. Read it closely. She only talks about peacemaking and turning from violence into making things grow. Not a mention about homemaking or raising kids or anything like that. And she's quite bitter about the fact that her turning from war to diplomacy will be seen as a man taming her, simply because she gets married. Whereas in the movie Faramir is literally a consolation price for Éowyn, so turns out all she needed was a guy. We think it's awesome that in the book she redirects her ambition from warfare and violence towards diplomacy and peacemaking. That is very important for everyone, particularly young girls, to see, since in reality women in power seem to get there by being as shitty as the men before them. Éowyn shows that there's a better way to interact with the world than destroying it. Does it bleed through that we're humanists/pacifists? All of the complexity of Éowyn is non-existent in the film. They gave all the dudes character arcs (even Faramir who didn't have one in the book) and took away the arc of the ONLY significant woman in the whole story. Not chill at all.
Moving on to the aspect that we hate most in all of media: the forced conflict. You didn't think it could get worse for Frodo and Sam from Towers, but Jesus Christ this was intolerable. Frodo is the heart and soul of the books and it is unforgivable where they went with his character, and Sam isn't far behind. Watch the documentaries, even the creators have trouble justifying the changes they made in Mount Doom. Mount Doom is the crown jewel of the shitturd that is Frodo's and Sam's story in the movie. Every single instance had to be laden with forced conflict simply to create drama. The writers have this misapprehension (which they even come clean about in the documentaries) that audiences won't be entertained without constant conflict onscreen. As with Éowyn, there are too many examples to choose from.
This is where Sam's actions go from "huh?" to "what the fuck?!" He's outright violent to Gollum. They made both Frodo and Sam so unlikable here. Sam is a violent brute and Frodo is just there completely passive and easily manipulated by Gollum. The little personality Frodo had in the first movie has been eradicated here. The Ring porn finally reaches its climax when Frodo goes back for the Ring at Mount Doom. They took the rather sombre and tender moment from the book and americanized it into a "don't you die on me!" - cliche. We could spend days on end bitching about Towers and Return movie versions but we'll leave it here for the sake of our own sanity.
