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CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION | ||
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Positive:
45
Mixed:
19
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews
The Daily BeastAug 31, 2022
Season 1 Review:
It’s fantasy writ exhilaratingly large, although at the start, what’s so impressive about showrunners J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay’s streaming effort (September 2) is its balance between the glorious and the vile, the romantic and the brutal, the euphoric and the despairing, and the grand and the intimate. ... It feels fresh and alive—and poised, consequently, to be the one that rules them all.
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Aug 31, 2022
Season 1 Review:
The good news is that in its first two episodes, Rings Of Power isn’t just good; it’s stupendous. ... While the show takes its time introducing us to the world and its initial groups, there’s no sense of dragging. The plot is propulsive, which is not necessarily a term one would normally use to describe Tolkien.
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ColliderAug 31, 2022
Season 1 Review:
The series marries what we've learned to love about contemporary fantasy, like Game of Thrones with its multiple main characters, with the depth and detail of Tolkien's universe. While there's still a whole season to watch, The Rings of Power is off to a successful start in delivering on its promise of quality and firing on all cylinders.
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Aug 29, 2024
Season 2 Review:
There’s plenty of action throughout, none of which feels harried, and building to a grand and explosive confrontation that honors the scale of what Jackson wrought for the big screen without severing our emotional connection to the story. But the story’s timelessness grounds it in foreboding; this season has a lot to say about the rise of charismatic empty suits and the peril of trusting in shiny new promises.
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RogerEbert.comAug 28, 2024
TV Guide MagazineSep 9, 2022
Aug 31, 2022
Season 1 Review:
It’s true, the pace of The Rings of Power’s first two episodes is slow and deliberate, and the show has to work to balance its screentime amongst many seemingly disconnected plotlines. But it’s clear that the show feels confident enough in the story it’s telling to allow its audience the necessary time to get to know its characters and their various goals and passions, before launching into the potentially world-ending stakes in their future.
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IndieWireAug 28, 2024
Season 2 Review:
What matters is that “The Rings of Power” chooses to focus on certain details, rather than settling for capturing Tolkien’s broad sentimentality. It may seem like “The Rings of Power” begins badly — and again, it only seems that way — but there’s no mistaking it ends well.
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Aug 29, 2024
Season 2 Review:
The Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power ups the ante in Season 2, but still takes its time to explore various sets of characters. It’s rare when a show gets five guaranteed seasons, and the show’s producers and writers are taking advantage of this expanded time to make the stories as good as they can be.
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Sep 16, 2022
Season 1 Review:
Adar’s début drips with signifiers. ... When Adar informs Arondir in Episode 4 that he has been told many lies, some that “run so deep even the rocks and roads now believe them,” it is still a thrill. Tolkien succeeded in creating a mythic world, one that has now grown vast enough through acts of typological repetition and imitation to conquer television, too.
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Aug 31, 2022
Season 1 Review:
The Rings of Power, which was developed by showrunners Patrick McKay and JD Payne and based largely on Tolkien's appendices, is dense with exposition, but also manages to nail down the mystical poetry of this specific universe. It’s not clear yet whether the show can maintain this spark beyond its first two hours, or whether it will get bogged down by its own expansiveness. But, for now, it seems like The Rings of Power has pulled off the near-impossible.
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Aug 31, 2022
Aug 31, 2022
Season 1 Review:
The story is expansive enough to fill up the show’s huge map, and where its fantasy premises promise impressive set pieces, like a battle with an ice troll or ships sailing into the Undying Lands, The Rings of Power lives up to those promises. Its emotional core, though simplistic, is just as big and openhearted.
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The GuardianAug 31, 2022
The PlaylistAug 31, 2022
Season 1 Review:
It’s the most expensive show on TV and it looks like the most expensive show on TV. Is all the spectacle in service of a story that will charm viewers the way characters like Frodo, Gandalf, and Aragorn did for generations? The problem is that it’s way too soon to tell as these first two episodes are all about introductions and world-building. ... There’s a reason for hope in that department thanks to sharp casting.
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IndieWireAug 31, 2022
Season 1 Review:
“The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” flutters to life in bursts, offering reason enough to believe, with time to play out its own story and optimize its own strengths, the Prime Video creation could leave its own gleaming mark on J.R.R. Tolkien’s still-expanding universe. Genuine chemistry draws sparks of humor and heartache.
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Aug 31, 2022
Season 1 Review:
One of the most expansive, lush and well-photographed projects you’ll ever see — a gorgeous, sprawling and magical albeit somewhat overstuffed epic filled with fascinating characters populating a world that feels like a colorful waking dream. ... Talented and good-looking actors (and many more) deliver strong and earnest performances, even when the dialogue is, let’s face it, a little corny and reminiscent of a children’s storybook.
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Aug 28, 2024
Season 2 Review:
Sometimes frustrating but just as often rewarding, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power hasn't reinvented itself in its second season, opting instead to turn up the intensity on everything it was already doing, including the many echoes of more famous Tolkien stories and moments that can feel a bit too much like fan service. .... But when it clicks, it feels like a worthy addition to the filmed Tolkien canon.
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SlashfilmAug 28, 2024
Season 2 Review:
Whenever these minor missteps threaten to derail the proceedings, we're whisked away on episodic adventures filled with monstrous creatures from Tolkien's bestiary or refreshingly lighthearted bursts of earnest sincerity or stirring songs telling tales of tragedy and whimsy. (Trust me, Bombadil fans, you won't be disappointed.)
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LooperAug 28, 2024
Season 2 Review:
if you've bought into the kind of fantasy experience this show is selling, there's a lot to like in the second season, from a great Morfydd Clark performance to some wonderful monsters and an overarching mythology that, when it's firing, really is gripping. "The Rings of Power" might never be as magical as the writing that inspired it, but it's still trying to be, and sometimes that's what matters most.
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ColliderAug 28, 2024
Season 2 Review:
While many of The Rings of Power's best qualities remain front and center in Season 2, so too do some of its greatest weaknesses. The series' large ensemble cast expands to cover even more physical ground in Middle-earth this season, but the same can't necessarily be said for the overall plot, which often suffers from disjointed pacing.
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Sep 1, 2022
Season 1 Review:
The invented exploits of the Harfoots and their star-man guest may drive purists batty. I don’t care; they give heart and a common touch to a story that could otherwise quickly become a live-action unicorn tapestry. ... A troubled, obsessed, Carrie Mathison-like Galadriel may not be purely Tolkien. But she is interesting, and that’s what “Rings of Power” will need to be, more than faithful, to sustain itself over multiple seasons. “Rings of Power” is spectacular on the screen, but spectacle will take you only so far in TV.
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Aug 31, 2022
Season 1 Review:
The first episode is dedicated primarily to world-building, exposition and proving that storytelling on this scale can be executed for television and generally succeeds, even if some of that exposition lags. Then in the second episode, the story starts to actually move along and there are characters and scenes that I found utterly charming in the way a show like this requires for long-term survival, even if some of the effects and epic scale diminish a tiny bit.
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Aug 31, 2022
Season 1 Review:
The first two episodes of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power are visually gorgeous, densely lived-in, and awe-inspiring at times. ... There is a big problem, though. The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power might have a strong start, but its plot is laden with so many moving parts and far-flung heroes, it’s easy to see the story cratering. ... Without watching beyond the two episodes provided for review, we can only be cautiously optimistic — and skeptical of what’s next.
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Aug 28, 2024
Season 2 Review:
There will undoubtedly be plenty of viewers who find the sacrifice of smaller, more intimate character moments well worth it for this kind of epic storytelling which, admittedly, takes some big swings and looks great doing it. But if you wanted to know enough about the characters who die during this battle—and elsewhere in the course of the season—to truly mourn their loss, you may find yourself more than a little disappointed.
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Sep 16, 2022
Season 1 Review:
With war brewing and the forging of the rings seemingly still far off, the first half of The Rings of Power’s first season constitutes little more than stage-setting for the struggle to come. Given the lack of quests and central commanding figures, it often makes for less-than-gripping drama. However, given that there are four more seasons already planned, and potentially dozens of new characters to be introduced, the slow and throat-clearing build is possibly a good sign.
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The TimesSep 11, 2024
Season 2 Review:
If this can feel like a series almost drunk on its budget and running time, there is still the intimate, twisted dance of Sauron and Celebrimbor (Edwards really is superb here). It’s almost as if evil old Sauron is bending not just Celebrimbor to his will but us too, and in doing so, ironically, saving the day.
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The Observer (UK)Sep 10, 2024
Aug 30, 2024
Season 2 Review:
The second season does improve as it progresses. .... But old habits die hard, and The Rings of Power can’t shake its addiction to ponderous speechifying and thuddingly self-evident character reveals (one made me put my head in my hands as I watched). The frustration with those, aside from the obvious, is the space they take up in a show that has so much universe to explore.
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Sep 1, 2022
Season 1 Review:
he first hour of the show — the series reportedly cost a record-breaking $58 million per episode — is little more than a series of action set-pieces with fancified language and British accents to make it all seem meaningful. ... In the second episode, the exposition dies down a bit, and glimmers of character do emerge, hinting at better episodes to come.
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iAug 31, 2022
Season 1 Review:
The dialogue’s often clunky, with cod mysticisms. Tolkien purists will probably be equally aggrieved by the insertion of invented characters and storylines. But showrunners JD Payne and Patrick Mackay have taken a mass of material, originally presented as a chronicle with little in the way of dialogue or character development, and forged a compelling, coherent narrative that fills a mouth-watering gap.
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Aug 29, 2024
Season 2 Review:
Scenes featuring the long lanky “Stranger” (or Istar, played by Daniel Weyman) and the Harfoots are improved now that he is able to speak (though a detour into a second Harfoot village feels a little like homework). The Khazad-dum plot, in which King Durin III is slowly corrupted by his ring, is genuinely affecting thanks to a number of textured, moving and humorous performances, even if it reprises beats we know from earlier installments. .... But the show’s use of the orcs baffles me even more in the second season.
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Aug 31, 2022
Season 1 Review:
Instead of reinventing Tolkien’s lore, they reinscribe it in a story that reverently and expensively draws on ones viewers will have heard many times before. The end result could be timeless or tired. But in its earliest episodes, Rings of Power tantalizes without challenging.
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Aug 31, 2022
Season 1 Review:
“The Rings of Power” is neither a disaster nor a triumph, merely television of a visibly expensive, fitfully inspired sort. It looks good, has a few charismatic performances that sell the characters and is all in all watchable, if something less than compelling — predictable even in the suspenseful parts, occasionally exciting and sometimes sort of boring.
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Aug 31, 2022
Season 1 Review:
Viewers hungry for Middle-Earth Anything could be satisfied, and I guess you could argue Rings of Power is no worse than all the other expensively empty genre adventures (Altered Carbon, anyone?) that have proliferated through the streaming era. But this series is a special catastrophe of ruined potential, sacrificing a glorious universe's limitless possibilities at the altar of tried-and-true blockbuster desperation.
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The IndependentAug 28, 2024
Season 2 Review:
An indulgent belief that “epic” means every interaction must be portentous – and that humour must be eschewed at all costs. The result is like being on a mirthless rollercoaster ride: thrown around, spun upside down, but always wondering when the fun is supposed to kick in.
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The TelegraphAug 28, 2024
Season 2 Review:
Were it anything other than a Lord of the Rings prequel, The Rings of Power would be passably entertaining and there’s no denying its naff charm. It has the creaky quality of a cheesy Eighties fantasy movie – think The Beastmaster on a blockbuster budget or Krull with better CGI.
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Aug 31, 2022
Season 1 Review:
The characters — including Elves Galadriel and Elrond, played by Cate Blanchett and Hugo Weaving in the films — are phyllo-dough thin, and the plots not much more substantial. ... The performances are serviceable but unremarkable, while the dialogue is particularly corny and inartful, with too many intoned monologues about the search for “the light” or the ever-vague nature of evil.
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