Astonishing!

Rating: 9/10 (24 December 2001)

Can it be?
Yes!
This is an excellent beginning to the Lord of the Rings trilogy! While there were slight story changes and some of the images are not what I've always imagined while reading the book, it is obvious that Peter Jackson has done an amazing job of capturing Middle Earth and putting it on-screen.
If there is one fault that I find with the film, it is that it glosses over elements that I thought were important in the story. This I can forgive - if they had done the film the way I really would have liked to see it, it'd be six or so hours long!
While the settings all shine in their own way, it seems obvious to me that the best attention was paid to Moria, which is so impressive it is a star of the film in its own right. The feel of overwhelming gloom and ruinous splendor that hangs about Khazad-dum is both expansive and claustrophobic at once, with this being broken only at Balin's tomb. The battle in Balin's tomb is astonishingly well done, and the pursuit to the Bridge of Durin shows the orcs as being, if possible, even more sinister and fearsome than I had imagined in the book. The orcs of Moria resemble nothing so much as humanoid spiders in the deeps.
As far as the Balrog is concerned, well... Lets just say that if I had to imagine a "Demon of Might" - this would be it!
Perhaps nothing is more striking in the film than being able to see through Frodo's view with the ring on. You can understand now that the ring does not just make you invisible... when the bearer wears it, it is as though he has entered another reality that overlays our own. It neatly works with Tolkien's own description of the "existance" of the Nazgul.
All in all, an amazing translation, and well worth seeing! A few omissions and changes do not detract from this film's viewability at all - go and see it NOW!