The gamble pays off!

Rating: 10/10 (22 December 2001)

Who would be foolish enough to film three movies at once - at tremendous expense - with a full two years plus needed to extract the rewards? Someone with guts and confidence that their product would be one for the ages - this achieves that. If one thinks back to how amazing the books were - and how difficult it would be to come up with a film to come anywhere close, one begins to get a sense of what this film, and, hopefully, the two to follow, have accomplished. This isn't the best cast in the world, it wasn't the acting (although McKellen is amazing, Wood is very good and there are some other decent performances) which, overall, was just pretty good - it was the craft of the creative team that brings this movie to its level of excellence. Star Wars will be forever superior because it's first two films brought a better combination of acting, imagination and creativity - but this comes close. It may be that this trilogy had a tougher assignment though with a more faithful audience from the Tolkien readers. In a word this is... impressive!