Better than expected

Rating: Null/10 (18 January 2002)

I've read and re-read the book several times, and love it more with each reading, so was apprehensive about what might have been done to it, but on the whole I thought Peter Jackson had done a really good job in adapting it as a film. Some of the performances were excellent - Sean Bean, Ian McKellen, Hugo Weaving and Elijah Wood were all superb; I also liked Sean Astin's Sam (whom Tolkien saw as the real hero of the story) - but the film really diminished the roles of Merry and Pippin, cast as the village idiots. I also thought Viggo Mortensen had too little gravitas as Aragorn - I hope he improves in the next installment (Hugo Weaving would have been a more interesting actor in the part).
All in all, the film is worthy of its origins, and I hope it inspires more people to read the book itself, which is so much greater. I would also recommend that anyone who liked the film search out the BBC radio dramatisation of "The Lord of the Rings", which is available on cassette tape and is being reissued on CD - it is faithful to the book and has wonderful actors (including Ian Holm as Frodo), and uses a lot of the book's poetry (something sadly missing from the film) set to superb music by Stephen Oliver.