Peter Jackson, get your Oscar speech ready...

Rating: 10/10 (19 December 2001)

Wow! Great flick. I went into the theatre today ready to pick this movie apart. I was ready to slice and dice through all the hoopla.

Did they follow the book to a tee (most excellently conceived story of all time, thanx Professor Tolkien...)? No, of course they didn't. They couldn't. It would have taken nine hours to fit it all in, for the Fellowship installment only. The entire Lord of the Rings would have to be at least 27 - 30 hours in all.
Were the special effects the best of all time? Perhaps. They were certainly better than those done in the last installment of the famous "Space" franchise.
The ensemble cast was perfect. The acting was superb.
The direction was absolutely perfect. For example, I'll try not to give anything away to those who don't know the story (are there really people who haven't read the books? What planet are they from?), Peter Jackson is one of very few directors, who even when practically EVERYONE knows the outcome to a particular sequence, can get the tears to well up in the eyes of the most stout emotion-quellers.
Enough said. This is the reason I go to the movies. This is what I have waited for all these years. Oscars will go to this movie, and rightfully so. Peter Jackson certainly deserves one. If he doesn't get one, he was robbed. Sir Ian McKellen should receive one as well.
10/10