Absolutely outstanding!

Rating: 10/10 (21 December 2002)

Absolutely outstanding!
When people ask me about this movie, one thing that crops up in 9 out of 10 conversations is the question `Is the movie true to the book?'

To me this is an unfair question.
If you had asked Peter Jackson to make a movie that was beyond all doubt true' to the book, you would have a sequence of 9 hour movies instead of 3 hour movies. Also, the movies would be disjointed, dull and unwatchable. Why, you ask? Because movies require a unique combination of flow and pace that books are not constrained to, and transferring a story to film without adapting it for the job would be a big mistake. Book and film are not compatible media. What I often say is that the movie is true to the SPIRIT of the book. I get the same feeling watching the film that I got when I'd sit up late at night, reading under lamp-light because I could not tear myself away from the story. The characters on screen look to me as though secret agents from Weta Workshops mind reading department have tiptoed in to my bedroom at night and plucked the images from my mind  and I'm not the only person who says that  all the hardcore Tolkien fans I have shared this thought with have agreed with great enthusiasm.
After watching this film, I feel justified in my past comments that PJ is a genius. I have been a fan since he produced the cult classic BAD TASTE in 1987, an alien/zombie movie that relied on vision and talent as opposed to a big budget or any real kind of budget at all, to be honest. The movie was improvised from start to finish (that's right, made up as they went along), and only received any kind of funding (beyond that which came from PJ's own pocket) just before its completion.
Jackson is a creative genius, and deserves every word of praise he gets. No other person could translate the greatest fiction ever written in to the greatest film ever made the way he has. I give the Lord Of The Rings a score of 15 out of 10.
(This review has been submitted verbatim for both The Fellowship Of The Ring & The Two Towers)