Simply the best movie in quite a few years.

Rating: 10/10 (23 December 2001)

This is the film that Lucas should pay attention to. This is how fantasy is done. The movie as near as I can tell easily appeals to a younger audience while not being dumbed down to the point of boredom. For a 3 hour movie, where one could easily say "Too long" in most cases, LoTR is not one of them. I'm a very critical movie-goer having seen more movies than I can remember and I feel that you have to be among the truly petty to find any real fault with this film enough to give it less than an 8. Unless you're simply not an action-fantasy fan. I, for one, gave it a 10. The movie did everything it was supposed to do, it was as about as perfect as a movie of it's type can get. No, that doesn't necessarily mean it's better or as good as Citizen Kane, or, say, The Godfather, I wouldn't bother ranking it with either, they're two very different films. I like to rate things in their category, it's too hard to find an "overall" when there are so many opinions about genres alone, let alone individual films. But I digress. I went into the theatre expecting to hate it. Hate it for the hype. Hate it for the fact I don't really like Liv Tyler. Hate it for the fact I thought the books were overrated, boring tripe. I left the theatre after feeling thoroughly entertained from start to finish. The only true fault in the film is it's length, and even then it's only a problem when it doesn't fit your schedule of free time. If you are a fan of fantasy, even if you are not a fan of Tolkien. You should at least "like" the movie if not be truly amazed by the depth and fun that it has. I saw a few hundred people lob a 1 for a rating at the film. I question their motive. Did they actually see the movie? Do they know what rating a movie as a 1 actually means? The movie is anything but "awful."