A technical achievement of the visual art that is unfortunately lacking of depth...

Rating: 9/10 (13 September 2002)

Film is a visual medium. And this film definitely lives up to the hopes and dreams of Tolkien fans for its visual splendor. Technology has advanced to the point to make an attempt at bringing Middle-Earth to life plausible. This film does so quite valiantly and with very few visual flaws.
There were many things that I thought were done very well. The battle with the Balrog was perfect. Galadriel's tempting by the ring was also very good. The times that Frodo puts on the ring, the dark fury that envelops him was a superb interpretation. The glimpses we get of Gollum are fantastic - I can't wait for the Two Towers to see him in all his slimy glory. And when Bilbo sees the ring and wants it back and for an instant turns Gollum-like himself was disturbingly perfect.
But unfortunately as Mr. Tolkien is no longer with us, he could not at least have been a technical consultant on the project. I was moderately disappointed in the screenplay (read: adaptation for that's what this is - an adaptation). If they were to bring the story contained in the Fellowship of the Ring to the screen completely, this film could easily have been six hours long. I understand removing elements that do not carry the plot along, but I cannot fathom why so many character development elements were left out. And I am sorry to see certain plot elements now occurring for completely different reasons and certain minor elements that come into play later in the story omitted and glossed over.
And the verses were left out. Many of the characters in the story used verse to tell the others about various pieces of the back-story. The magical element of 'legends coming to life' is not allowed to appear. And so much of the emotion was left out. The development of the relationships between many of the characters is gone and I can understand why many that have written reviews claim that the characters are 2-dimensional. And the whole thing with Lurtz (the Uruk-Hai archer) was weird.
But one of the changes that I thought was well done from an emotional standpoint was Peter Jackson's / Sean Bean's version of Booramir. In the books, Booramir was pretty much a jerk to his last breath. But the fall of Booramir that we see on the screen was fantastic. The whole scene in slow motion as he keeps getting struck with arrows, one after another, and each time has to fight to regain his strength to defend the half lings still stuns me. I sat in the theater with my mouth hanging open and have had a similar reaction every time I have seen it on DVD since. The Booramir we see at the end is a valliant man, truly sorry for his failing, and his reconcilement with Aragorn were much better than originally presented in the book.
If you are new to the world of Middle-Earth, you will definitely want to see this film as it is truly a technical achievement. But do so with an interpreter (someone well versed in Tolkien lore). I went to see it with my wife and ended up explaining the film for several hours after it ended.

If you are a Tolkien fanatic as I am, you must see this film. But be warned that your experience may be like that of Luthien Tenuviel's - both sweet and bitter.