I agree. The characters are reworked to fit Jackson’s vision of the story, not the author’s.
That doesn’t keep it from being somewhat fun, but it’s still obnoxious. Especially all the falling!
I was more annoyed by the over the top stunts; Legolas surfing the shield down the stairs, bouncing around like Spider-Man on the oliphaunt, etc. That and some of the lame attempts at humor (most of which had Gimli as the butt of the them) did detract from the films.
But that having been said, they remain the greatest fantasy epic ever put on film. I just like to nitpick :-)