Overwrought, deleterious, long, boring, and other descriptive adjectives

Rating: 1/10 (19 December 2001)

First - I didn't really enjoy the first book. No matter how big a fan
you are of Tolkien, some little voice inside of you is screaming:
"the first book was really long and boring, and not much
happened." The first book was primarily history; setting the stage
for the following installments.
Regardless, I lined up with 11 friends at 10:30pm in freezing
weather to watch what we thought was going to be our money's
worth of special effects and cinematic story telling at its best. The
special effects were really good.
Not one of us enjoyed this film. It was incredibly long and boring,
much like its book counterpart, but everything that made the book
readable was not present in the film. Like character development.
What it all boils down to is this: Tolkien may have been a catalyst
for a new age of fantasy storytelling, but he himself is not a very
engaging writer, and the adaption for this screenplay is ever more
dreary and mind-numbing than its father. The books are hailed as
classics by idiots like me who stand in the rain at 12:01 in the
morning to watch the first showing. The series is interesting (the
elven language, the mythology et al), but the movie is not. If the
film becomes a 'classic,' it's because of fools who have stupidly
and blindly bought into the hype behind this juggernaut (like I did)
and by those nostalgic individuals who enjoy thinking wistfully
about the stories from their childhood. We all want our childhood
fantasies to be made real (maybe 'The Grinch' was the big
disappointment for a number of you last year) - at least I do, but
some stuff is just better left to the imagination.
The landscapes are beautiful insofar as they shot almost
everything on location in New Zealand. The cities are majestic; the
good guys are definitely good; the brave warriors hardy and brave;
and the evil guys are totally evil down to where they decided to
build their little fort.
A casual side note - some of the casting was just plain deplorable;
I kept hearing "Mr. Anderson" at the end of every line Hugo
Weaving spoke as Elron.
Don't try too hard to want this movie to be excellent, or good, or
even average. It's not. In my eyes, the book is better, but both are
boring. Spend your money as you see fit, but if you want a quality
film, I'd currently recommend Amelie or Bread and Tulips.
-xnoybis