a waste of three hours

Rating: 1/10 (7 January 2002)

I have tons of friends who have read the books and seen this movie multiple times. They told me to go, even though I haven't read the books. I'm not sure if you have to read the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy to appreciate this movie, but for me, this movie was a waste of three good hours.
I liked the movie at the beginning. Learning the history of the rings seemed very useful, and I liked Frodo and the other hobbits. The movie seemed to be moving in a good direction. But then they started on their journey. And that's when things got boring. Extremely boring. Mind-numbingly boring. It took them more than 1 1/2 hours and half a dozen battles to actually find all the people for the Fellowship of the Rings! And there was still an hour and a half of meaningless battles left!
I am not opposed to long movies. I liked "Titanic" and "The Godfather" very much. But those movies had enough substance that the plot could be entertaining for the entire movie. This one ran out of substance once the Fellowship started on their journey. The battle in the mines of Moria hardly contributed anything to the plot. The same was true with the Cate Blanchett scene. And what on earth was Liv Tyler's character in there for? The whole subplot with her and Strider was only more confusing. Maybe these scenes foreshadow something to come in the next two movies or something. Whatever they were, they made no sense in the context of this movie.

Another thing that keeps long movies going is good dialogue. Dialogue that gives the characters personality. Dialogue that makes the audience want to listen. But the dialogue in this movie is so pretentious and preachy that nobody would ever actually speak it. Because of that, the characters show absolutely no signs of life and are not people that you want to follow for the entire movie. Frodo, the character that was probably meant to be the hero, cowers and hides whenever there's a fight, and twice he gets stabbed for his cowardice. The other characters were one-dimensional, and I really don't want to sit through two more movies with these people in them.
*POSSIBLE SPOILER IN THE NEXT PARAGRAPH*
Finally, the ending! Was that supposed to leave us in suspense so that we will go to the next movie? I don't know what the director's intent was, but the ending was completely unsatisfying. I was expecting at least a finite end to some part of the story, but there was none. Three hours of battles and meaningless speeches, and all you get is a shot of Frodo and Sam heading over the mountains.
All right, so maybe this movie makes sense to people who have read the books. Maybe the movie truly was a visual representation of the world J.R.R. Tolkien created. Since The Lord of the Rings is #1 on IMDb's top 250 right now, I'm guessing it made sense for a lot of people. But a movie should make sense to all viewers, whether or not they have read the books. No matter how many Lord of the Rings fans love this movie, I consider it the worst movie I've seen in a long time.
*1/2 stars out of 4.