Rather good movie, spectacular adaptation

Rating: 7/10 (26 August 2002)

I'd been meaning to read the book for years, and I made sure to actually do it prior to viewing the film. I was impressed...there is an absolute wealth of story in the book, and no movie could even come close to including it all, but the feel of the book was there. The first 20 minutes of the movie seemed pretty rushed, but it successfully drew me in. The characters had come to life.
However, it's far from a perfect movie. On my second and third viewings the poor dialogue started to show up in some places. And it's really, really bad. In particular, there's Aragorn speaking to Legolas and Gimli..."Let's hunt some orc." That has to be one of the most horrendous lines I've ever heard.
Still, the film is beautiful to look at, wonderfully directed, and a better adaptation of the book than I would have thought humanly possible. It doubtlessly doesn't deserve the #4 rating on IMDB, but it's still an excellent movie. Numerous people will hate this movie, but most will be swept into Tolkein's beautiful and epic fantasy world. 7/10