A bit of Middle Earth in your eyes.

Rating: 8/10 (26 May 2012)

So much was said about Lord Of The Rings, plenty more is yet to come, and so I'll keep it (relatively) brief and straight as much as possible. This review will include all 3 films, although I believe "The Fellowship Of The Ring" is the best one by far.
Script and story:
I am a big fan of Tolkien's work, and the arrival of a wide screen adaptation was more than welcome. Did it deliver and compensate for all the years of waiting? Generally it did, with some exceptions though. Most of us would agree that no motion picture can accurately be transcribed to depict a novel, especially in the Hollywood environment. That certainly applies on the LOTR trilogy, and yet, Jackson has managed to transfer some of that Tolkien magic to the silver screen. Taking on Tolkien is a challenging task, since his style of writing was quite unique. Unlike many other fantasy authors, JRR had it all written down to a single detail with very few, if any, unexplained and non elaborated details. His characters are mostly deep multi-layered personalities, with enough material for each one to be portrayed in a movie of it's own. And so, transferring such a complex substance into a commercial flick presented both a professional and creative dare. Did Jackson deliver? Well, he most certainly tried hard, and as far as all three films go, the best link with Tolkien's story was achieved in "The Fellowship Of The Ring". Although "The Two Towers" and "The Return Of The King" are visually stunning, way too many inconsistencies and improvisations were applied, sometimes completely altering the original story written by Tolkien. Even so, with all of it's flaws, LOTR remains one of the best Hollywood screenings of a written word. Maybe it's only 10-15% accurate, but it is a very decent 10-15%, and I love it.
The cast:
So many characters in Tolkien's work, so many of them in the films, and therefore I will concentrate just on the best and worst performances. In this case, we're talking about two Seans.
Most of the cast did a very fair job, and the credits would go to the lot. Still, the most convincing and (in tie to the original books) most accurate performance would be the one of Samwise Gamgee. Not only that Sean Astin was one of the rare actors with a proper age for the role, but his impression of a simple and pure hearted Hobbit truly reflected a good bit of what Tolkien described, from the start until the very end.
On the other side, the worst performance by far was the on of Sean Bean. His character was a horrible miscast which utterly ruined the role of Boromir. While in the book this Man was depicted as a strong, willing and righteous person who only eventually got seduced by the power of the One Ring, Sean left a completely different and wrong impression of a cynical selfish hillbilly, which couldn't be more far apart from the real character. Naturally this is the result of Bean's general lack of acting talent, since all of his roles have begun and ended in the same shallow manner.
The music:
Not much to tell here... Howard Shore was an acclaimed composer even before LOTR, and with this score he got cemented in the hall of fame. This is the only part of the films where it is impossible to find any flaws. LOTR soundtrack is a masterpiece of it's own, and I just don't see how it could be improved in any way.
The overall impression is generally positive. Was it accurate? - up to a certain point. Did it deliver the atmosphere of Middle earth? - by all means yes. It could have been better, no doubt about it, but even in this form I like LOTR movies very much and honestly can't wait to see The Hobbit.