Three sides of the trilogy

Rating: 1/10 (18 March 2002)

After seeing this movie about 20 times and having read the books countless times and since my hobby is, and has been for 20 something years, watching movies I think I can make review ...
The movie as a action / adventure / fantasy movie
This is the category lotr fares best, all the basic elements of a decent movie are present, a horrible enemy that tries take over the world, a hero (and his friends, that include the comic relief), a object that destroys the enemy, lots of monsters, fight's & cliffhangers. As a "popcorn" movie it is quite good, although the movie is maybe a bit too long, for an action movie that is, the audience receives what it is looking and waiting for and visually the movie is quite nice indeed. Just as a action / adventure / fantasy movie I would give it a 7.5 / 10 maybe closer to 8 even, but it's not something that would blow my mind, all this has been seen in countless other movies, maybe in different form, in different surroundings, but still nothing ground breaking.
The movie as a movie
This is where it hit's thin ice. Character's are very shallow, their motives and their personalities are left in the dark (other that can be shown in fights) eg. Frodo run's into Merry & Pippin in some field, and so they decide to follow Frodo, albeit they have no idea where they are going and why, had the movie established that they were good friends before it had been a lot easier to understand. Story is driven forward with a really fast pace (after Frodo leaves Shire that is) and unfortunately it is done with the expence of the story, all emphasis is given to action, action and more action. The characters are as basic as movie characters go, you got the comic relief (Merry & Pippin) the unbeatable warrior (Aragorn) the turncoat (Boromir) and so forth, and since the movie "had" to be modernized you also need the "femme fatale" (Arwen) and still this would be tolerable IF the characters were something more than a aid that just runs the movie forward. One other major problem is that the movie is "pre chewed" nothing is left to the viewer, the director takes the easy way out and so underestimates the viewers badly, I think it's rather sad really. So what does the movie leave you with ? well basicly your typical action adventure that is set in fantasy land. It's a typical hollywood production that emphasis on glitter rather than substance. As a movie I would rate it about 6 / 10
The movie as a adaptation of Tolkien's work
Well, what can I say ? basicly it takes just the basic storyline and forget's everything else, it's so horribly different from the book that it makes me cringe in terror. Those who disagree with me should really read the book's ... Peter Jackson is surely entitled to his vision but he shouldn't say that the movie is faithfull, since it is not. Jackson took the easy way to make this movie, he forgot about the soul of the book and made a action movie instead. Timeline is totally wrong, parts are cut out (like Bombadil) parts are added (like Arwen) since it needs to be "modern" I have read several review's here that say that the books needed to be modernized, may I ask why ? dont see a reason personally. I am not going to start to list everything that is changed, as I would need several pages more room, I am sure that if you want you can find places in internet that list the changes. As a Tolkien adaptation my rate is 3 / 10
Bottomline is that while lotr is quite enjoyable and should be seen if this genre appeals to you it's not that special, when Jackson made the movie he tried to target as broad audience as possible and so had to seriously alter the books in order to make it more appealing. Visually quite stunning (the landscape) and with good actor's it's nice, althought nothing that would deserve it's present ranking...