Good adherence to book but helps to have read the books.

Rating: 10/10 (19 December 2001)

I very much enjoyed the film; I only wish I could have spent the next six hours seeing the next two "books"!. Having read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy many times over the last 25 years certainly helped prepare me as well as propel me to the first showing here in SF. The casting is pretty darn wonderful, especially Sean Astin at Sam(although Liv Tyler/Arwen got a bit of a chuckle upon her appearance/entrance; somehow Hugo Weaving as Elrond still had me thinking about Agent Smith in The Matrix; Cate Blanchett as Galadriel is enchanting). The visuals so far are not far from my own imaginings except perhaps the roughness of clothing and appearances of some; has more a medieval (i.e. European history) look than that of Middle Earth, but it still works. The special effects so far seem not excessive yet still impressive when used. If only they could include more detail but I think each book would need to be a trilogy of film and they would even then probably still need to eliminate details...I think I can wait a year, but I might have to go find my books first!