Don't bother watching unless you read the book.

Rating: 10/10 (20 April 2002)

***SPOILERS AHEAD***

There are two reasons to not watch this movie unless you have read the book: one is that it will bore the heck out of you, and the other is that you might really like it but have spoiled the read, not becoming acquainted with the full storyline by reading the book first. Personally, I read the book (er,trilogy) first. For many Tolkien fans, all this movie had to do was not suck. Tolkien fans have been robbed of a good cinematic interpretation of the book for so long that giving the TLOR in film was like giving a starving man a cracker.

I waited until my 24th birthday to go and see this film and would get upset at my friends if any of them tried to tell me their opinion of the movie before I had seen it. It was very important to me that I have NO expectations. I did not want to be disappointed. Well, I wasn't. From the opening narrative I was enthralled. I now believe this film was executed towards one primary purpose: to make the Tolkien fans happy. Every detail and scene was inspired by original illustrations of the many artists who have painted or drawn scenes from TLOR over the decades. Rivendell was so perfectly portrayed it actually brought tears to my eyes (and I'm no crybaby). I was actually overcome with emotion at really seeing what my mind's eye had seen for so long. I think many viewers, myself included, had the feeling that this film BELONGED to them. This film was cast,scored and directed long before Jackson ever put his hands on it. This was MY film. Jackson did a good job of not getting in the way of MY film too much.
Obviously I am making an argument for the emotional reasons that many enjoyed this film. On the other side, I completely understand how somebody who never read the book would find it boring. It has been long enough since I went to see the film that I can be objective and look at the flaws.

In fact, there were a few flaws I found while watching it, and I'll mention those first. Elijah Wood, in my opinion, was not hobbitish at all. I never thought of hobbits as boyish and undeveloped-even if they are young in age as Frodo was. Dudley Moore is really the only hobbit-type who comes to mind right now. I admit Sean Austin did have that perfect affability a hobbit should have, but he too was not quite right. I don't recall who played Bilbo, but he was MUCH better (and provocative I might add). The main gripe I have about the hobbits was their makeup. It is obvious that they were made to look much more human than they actually were written to be. Hobbits are not dainty and hairless! Capturing the look of a hobbit was missed in the film, and unfortunately, was a major flaw. The original book WAS titled The Hobbit, after all.
My next gripe is about the battle scenes. While some have commented on how good they were, I found them tiresome due to the weird camera angles and overdone graphics. The only battle scene I appreciated was the unoriginal, though wonderfully epic, battle in which what's-his-name chops the hand off of the big bad ugly dude.
This leads me on to my next point: none of the monsters seemed that scary and were almost all way overdone. I felt at times that I was being catapulted back into an early 80's flashback of Iron Maiden and other cheese heavy metal bands album covers. Or was it a WWF lineup for Halloween? The music was also a bit obvious. I am sure we all like our Enya when we take our bubblebaths, but I thought the artist's familiarity detracted from the originality of the rest of the film. I like Enya, but this song was weak and went nowhere. Whatever happened to the Led Zeppelin or even the Jethro Tull era of music-the time when TLOR was at the height of its popularity? Enya seemed the Celine Dion of fantasy cinema, and I don't mean in a good way (I pray I'm safe here in assuming any self-respecting Tolkien fan steers clear of Celine). Her music and even the original score were just a wee bit overdone, me thinks. There were certain scenes when I wondered if the music could get any louder.
On to my favorite scenes in the film. Hobbiton was executed with perfection. I'm only sorry there wasn't more film time for it, but hopefully in the sequel. The only qualm I had was the Bilbo's hobbit hole was not quite as lavish as described in the book, and I would have enjoyed the eye candy (that is, after all, what this film essentially was about). The guy who played Gandalf was superp, and I know others will hate me for bringing Hollywood names into it, but I'd have really liked to see Sean Connery as Sauron and Anthony Hopkins as Gandalf. Still, they were both played wonderfully and my favorite scene was when they first met in Sauron's castle. I thought Rivendell was fabulous, but again, the elves also looked too human! The flight scene with Arwen was good and Liv Tyler was well-cast, and the languages of the elves was absolutely perfect. I have actually studied the languages and could see they did have to improvise since it was never really a complete language to begin with, and it was done beautifully.

Objectively, I can see how somebody who has not read the book would find the movie a total bore. In fact I know I would have not made it through three hours. But having read the book, I was wishing the movie was 30 hours long! I liked the movie for emotional reasons, and though that doesn't make me a fair critic, I hope the movie's success will continue to encourage people to go and read the trilogy to understand what everyone was talking about.
Despite the film's obvious flaws and lack of appeal to newbies, I still have to give this film 9 out of 10 stars due to it's visual and fan-pleasing integrity-which is practically unheard of with books-turned-movie. I might buy a larger television just to watch it when it comes out on DVD.