As good as it could be in 3 hours ...

Rating: 9/10 (19 December 2001)

I saw it last night at 12:01AM. Keep in mind that I've read the book 18 times, the Hobbit 6 times and the Silmarillion twice. As such, I'm not the easiest fan to satisfy.
All in all, I was very pleased. A few of the characters could have been truer (although, it's possible that _my_ interpretation of them is wrong). Elves are tough to portray. Legolas was amazing -- really amazing. Undaunted, mysterious and aloof, he might have been my favorite IN THE FILM. Galadriel and Elrond were too ... harsh, in my opinion. They are stern and cold in the book, but not harsh. The hobbits were perfect, especially Samwise. Gandalf was as perfect a depiction as anyone could imagine.
The effects were downright amazing. The balrog and mountain troll were just as I had imagined them. At no point in the movie did I feel like the effects were overbearing.
My only REAL complaint was that I sat down in the theater, and before I knew it, the film was over. Through the whole thing the film felt like it was on fast-forward. So many things were compressed. However, this said, Jackson did a really amazing job keeping the storyline with the sacrifices that he made. I really wish that it was 6 hours long.