Great Movie, I love the books and was not dissapointed one bit.

Rating: Null/10 (24 December 2001)

Let me first say I am a devotee of the Lord of the Rings books, not Tolkein or his other works as a whole. I do not think Tokein is a great author and his books are really boring and sadly, badly written for the most part. But I feel he is the best story teller of the modern era, one that could of used a ghost writer badly though.
Needless to say I have been wetting myself with anticipation for over a year with this movie, a hunger heightened by the sheer poopy-ness of the movies to come out this year for the most part. And I have been overwhelming pleased with the end result.
I feel almost every decision Jackson and Co. made worked wonderfully, most of all the inclusion of Boromir's "departure" at the end of the film. This not only made the conclusion more logical than the book, but also really non-readers want to see more...not to mention provided a splendid action scene to cap the film with. The extension of Arwen and the love story was OK, and I thought the inclusion of a visible Saruman and Lurtz the head Uruk-Hai were good moves, even though the latter was just blade fodder in an entertaining way. I also thought the prolouge at the begining was great. And I did not give a rats behind before seeing the movie or since that Tom Bombadil was not in the film.
Nitpicks of things I did not like were not to numorus. One was the lack of them showing Galadriel's gifts to the fellowship. And the secene where she became the "Abyss" like neon thingy freaked me out and was not as I recalled from the book. On that point the elves as a whole just kind of annoyed me, cept for Legolas who was da man. Also the rather disjointed time frame bothered me, for example it appears Saruman builds in army in a week or so. The soundtrack was too bombastique for me at points, espicially as my friend pointed out in the mines of Moria when the fanfare was deafening us but we knew we were looking at CGI images.
As for the film the direction and effects were awesome, from the shrinking to the Balrog. All the actors were good considering that this would be considered fluff material to most, I feel Sir Ian stole the award for best of the bunch and would not mind seeing an Oscar nommination for him. Make up and art in general were flawless, one of the best visual movies ever I have seen. I even enjoyed the considerable (as compared to the next two storys) sparse battle scenes, each were exciting to me and inventive. Legolas had my favorite "moves", like the immortal arrow to the throat poke and then used again as a missile. I appluade the entire crew taking a serious tone to the film most of all.
One of my all time favorite movies allready and a very good one...not in the "Schindlers List" or "Goodfellas" category of films but an outstanding one non the less. But I will be annoyed if it somehow wins a Best Picture Oscar, I enjoy my ability to seperate films I enjoy and are good as opposed to fine pieces of cinema and acting, Mr. Crowe I'm talking about you!!!
All that aside a great beggining to an outstanding triology.