Slightly disappointing

Rating: 7/10 (27 December 2001)

I think given my love of the story, and great respect for Peter Jackson, some amount of disappointment was to be expected. Perhaps I was expecting too much, and since there was so much plot and character development in the book, whatever movie Jackson produced was going to have a difficult time fleshing out all the elements.
That said, I did enjoy the movie. It's getting great reviews, but I wonder how folks who never read the book could follow everything. My biggest complaint is that it seemed to move so quickly through lots of details that would seem to be important when establishing the "epic" nature of the story. Of course, it may be that the plot carries itself, and that you don't necessarily need to know all the back history and whatnot to enjoy the film, but who knows.
In any case, I'm still a Peter Jackson fan and hope the next two installments can bring out more of his genius, as well as building on the rich detail of the story.