Absolutely fantastic.

Rating: 10/10 (30 December 2002)

Most of what needs to be said about LOTR has already been said. It's a fine movie that pleased and delighted even the many nay-sayers who thought that Peter Jackson would produce another movie like Braindead. Having now watched the extended version I have to say that it adds a few extra scenes without going too far and just rounds out the story a little more. There are still a couple of scenes I would have liked to have seen in the film, namely the Barrow-Wights and also the scene after they leave Moria where they look into the lake, but very little of any consequence is left out of the story.
The cast are all excellent and very much as I imagined them when reading the books many years ago. It's also refreshing to see a movie where the film isn't carried by one or two main actors. All the cast get significant screen time, and the various sub-stories (Gimli and Moria or Boromir, for example) are well presented and not skimpy add-ons to the main plot.
There are some liberties with the script and characterization. For example, Merry and Pippin are now much more along for comic-relief than the serious young hobbits they were in the book. But even this works, as it provides a source of light humour to an otherwise quite dark storyline.
And to those that say it's nothing like the books, well..... just be thankful it didn't turn into Dungeons and Dragons, or you'd really have something to cry about.