A pretty good special effects showcase that loses much of the book's verbal charm

Rating: 7/10 (20 October 2002)

I liked the movie, and though it did a pretty good job of presenting a "Cliff's Notes" version of the book. (Well, not really. Real Cliff's Notes typically include analysis along with the synopsis that students sometimes use to avoid reading the whole book.) For someone who has read the book, the movie is somewhat superfluous, although it is a decent effects showcase. For someone who hasn't read the book, it's a good shortcut to the story, although it misses a lot of the verbal cleverness of the book.
Since most people who are likely to be interested in the movie have already read the book (unless they're parents there with kids who are fans), and the movie doesn't add anything to the book in terms of storytelling, the only fair way to rate it for most viewers is on the basis of the effects. In terms of technical craftsmanship, I thought the effects were very good, but they weren't so hot in terms of artistic creativity. That is, the effects were mostly stuff that we've all seen before, but it was very skillfully done collection of stuff we've seen before.
Compared to the long history of mostly-awful fantasy movies, it's an outstanding movie, near the cream of the crop. But since it was released in a year that also included the first Lord of the Rings movie, it looks pretty weak. But just think how brilliant it would have looked if its main fantasy competitor had been something like the cartoon Lord of the Rings, the Dungeons and Dragons movie or Ator the Fighting Eagle.
(I didn't actually see the D&D movie; I was warned off by critics. But I did see Ator way back when, and then saw it again by mistake when it was re-released with a different title, and even wrote an IMDB review for it.)