nice piece

Rating: 8/10 (21 December 2001)

This is a very good movie, and quite possibly one of my favorites ever (that is different, however than being one of the BEST ever). I wish deeply for a touch more character depth, and a few extra seconds for scene transition to make the movie flow a little better.
The evil in the evil characters is too simple and one-sided, and arwen's magic does seem a tad out of place- though I don't mind her getting a little more screentime. Battles were tremendous, though felt a teensy bit unrealistic (like the orcs shooting only before and after the jump over the pit, allowing the fellowship about a minute or two to focus on the jump- etc). As a martial artist, I can say it would have helped the top fighting actors (legolas, gimli, aragorn) to get some more fighting training a.k.a matrix- They were impressive, don't get me wrong, but they were asked to be superhuman fighters in a way that their skill levels didn't quite seem to fit with- for example- cutting down 10 orcs without getting your head split in two or even winded would require such finesse and skill- efficiency of each cut and proper footing, few of which were in place for any given scene. the special effects largely made up for it though- so we can still believe. In fact, you can't even really tell where reality ends and the special effects begin.
LOR was beautiful and elegant, had good acting overall, and was very exciting. It really did seem a lot shorter than 3 hours- maybe more like 1. The above complaints are nit picky, and this movie does deserve some oscars. I wouldn't call it the number one of all time.. but quite possibly best of the year- and its broad appeal does not surprise me in the least.
Not for little children- some of the adults were even quite frightened by a few of the scenes, and it is somewhat graphic at times. Highly recommended for everyone else though. There was crying, gasps and laughter in the audience throughout the movie- hallmarks of a quality film. I give it a 95/100.