An overlong adventure enlivened by wonders.

Joe Morgenstern

Wall Street Journal

Piles on enough eye candy and action sequences to please fans, plus more humor than the three Rings films - even if it only occasionally achieves the trio's grandeur.

Lou Lumenick

New York Post

A mesmerizing study in excess, Peter Jackson and company's long-awaited prequel to the Lord of the Rings saga is bursting with surplus characters, wall-to-wall special effects, unapologetically drawn-out story tangents and double the frame rate (48 over 24) of the average movie.