A fun movie, and a good adaptation of the book

Rating: 9/10 (19 December 2001)

I'll freely admit that I am a Tolkien fan (and proud of it). I've read the Hobbit twice, the Lord of the Rings at least six times, and the Silmarillion twice as well -- in addition to much of the "unfinished" work.
I went into this movie hoping for the best, but expecting the worst.
Thankfully, the movie exceeded my expectations by quite a large margin. Peter Jackson has created a truly wonderful adaptation of the first book. I'm not going to call it a masterpiece, but it's a very entertaining and engaging movie. Most importantly, Mr. Jackson managed to stay, for the most part, faithful to the source material. There were some liberties taken: the role of Arwen (Liv Tyler) was expanded, the true impetus behind Sarumans evil machinations, the "magic fight" between Gandalf and Saruman, the reasons for Merry & Pippin joining Frodo and Sam on their adventure, etc, etc.
Most of this, IMO, came about because there is really no way that a single 3-hour movie can capture the staggering amount of "history" and back-story that forms the core of the the series. If Mr. Jackson had adhered strictly to the books, most of the audience would have been buried under obscure references and left the theatre scratching their heads in bewilderment (not to mention the runtime would have been, at least, 3x as long). You have to read the books many times, in addition to voluminous amount of related material, to truly understand the epic scope of the history of Middle Earth and the War of the Ring.
And, most importantly, let's not forget that Mr. Jackson (and the studio involved) has to make a movie that will appeal to those who know nothing about the world created by J.R.R. Tolkien. Hence the reason for many of the "changes" and the amped up action sequences.
In short; Mr. Jackson managed strike a respectable balance between the works of Tolkien and the avarice of Hollywood. Will it replace the books? Not by a long shot. It is, however, an entertaining movie from beginning to end, and it's a shame that we have to wait a year to see the rest of the story unfold.