The best movie I've seen for awhile!

Rating: Null/10 (18 May 2002)

Having read the books by Tolkien at least 20 times (or perhaps less), I greatly anticipated seeing this first installment in the trilogy, when I heard about it in 1999. As soon as it came to theaters here in Donetsk, I hastily purchased tickets. Now that I've seen it, I will say that I'm thoroughly impressed and I'd like to note 3 things from the movie.
The sets and locations - New Zealand was a beautiful place for Jackson to film his films. The mountains, the fields, and the rivers are all wonderful and match nearly how I would have imagined Middle-earth. The sets were breathtaking, especially Rivendell, on the big-screen. All the others, such as the Shire, Moria, Isengard and Mordor were pretty cool too. But Lothlorien was a disappointing, too dark and creepy. The book describes it as a light place.
The special effects - I've seen several movies with highly technological CG scenes (`Star Wars Episode 1', `Titanic', to name a few), but this one beats them all down. The canyon/forge zoom-ins in Isengard were amazing. The makeup they spent on those terrifying goblins was scary and warranted the PG-13 rating. The other CG images (the cave troll, the tentacled monster, the Black Riders, the Eye of Sauron, the Balrog with whom they did a great job of mixing shadow and flame) were cool too.
The acting - all the actors and actresses did a really good job, though I had only heard of three of them. First of, Ian McKellen and Christopher Lee did the best job of portraying the forces of good and evil in Gandalf and Saruman. And I'm sure no one left the theater without forgetting those 4 words `You shall not pass!' I didn't. Elijah Wood (`Adventures of Huck Finn') did a good job as Frodo and Ian Holm came in close third for me as Bilbo (he was also the voice of Frodo in a BBC dramatization, also did a good job). The other hobbits, Sean Astin as Sam, Dominic Monaghan as Merry, and Billy Boyd as Pippin, were good too and added comic relief. Sean Bean did a great job portraying Boromir with his emotional battle between the powers of the Ring. At first, Viggo Mortensen made a bad impression on me as Aragorn, but he grew on me as the film went on. John Rhys-Davies and Orlando Bloom did a good job as Gimli and Legolas, though Gimli came across to me as more of a jerk than in the book. Liv Tyler and Cate Blanchett were ok as Arwen and Galadriel, but Hugo Weaving (voice of Rex in `Babe') was my only complaint as Elrond.
Having said those things, this film is not for everyone. I would recommend it to fans of the books, or anyone who appreciates good fantasy. I would not recommend it to younger children, anyone who gets nightmares easily, or anyone who is offended by brutal violence. It was not bloody, but there were many deaths and a goblin gets beheaded at the end. Ugh! Anyway, go and this if you think you have the time (3 hours if pretty long) and if you like goof fantasy, adventure, or Tolkien.
One other thing: the music was cool too. I purchased the soundtrack soon after and Howard Shore did great with it all. Somebody told me that the music was close to that of `Gladiator'. If anybody knows in what way, tell me. I intend to go and see the next two films when they come out and buy this one when it comes out on video.