Movie Analysis
Although the movie did cost 300 million to make, that is spread over 3 movies so considering the cost of movies these days it wasn't that much (well it was but not unheard of).

The first movie missed large chunks of the book out. There was no adventures with Tom Bombadil which in the book provided some light entertainment compared with the total seriousness of the rest of the story.

The second one spent a long time on the battle for Helms Deep, probably longer than it should but you know movies, always with the dramatisation. And if my memory serves, in the movie Aragorn falls over a cliff. This never happened in the book.

The last one missed out basically the second half of the book althought his was not unexpected. In the book Frodo and posse return to find an evil gang leader has enslaved a lot of the Shire and he must eradicate this leader first. But after the whole of Middle Earth being on the brink it was a bit of an anti-climax to say the least so it's not suprising the movie missed it out.

One point: the length of the movies. The first two were 3 hours long each, the second one was 3 hours 15 minutes. So anyone who saw the trilogy wasted a total of basically 10 hours in the cinema when you include time waiting for it to begin (not wasted as in it sucked but, you know, its a movie!) Hmm, perhaps spending 16 hours of my life watching it wasn't such a great idea ;).