#1? C'mon people... (7/10)

Rating: 7/10 (26 December 2001)

10 out of 10? So, in other words, FotR is on par with or better then classics like 'The Godfather', 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest', '12 Angry Men' or even "instant classics" like 'American Beauty', 'The Shawshank Redemption' and 'The Usual Suspects'? To quote a line from another classic (Austin Powers): righhhhhhhht. The rating you give is supposed to be a measure of the quality of the movie not if the movie was true to the novel or how it measured up to other fantasy movies (I would argue 'Excalibur' is the superior fantasy film). Of course all this is falling on deaf ears because the hype machine has a firm hold on FotR just like another film released in December (I think) a few years back about a sinking ship.
FotR is beautiful to look at and to hear, has an interesting central plot and has intriguing, if somewhat underdeveloped, characters. The CG employed in the film is very fluid and not overdone. All in all, one of the most enjoyable films of the year and one of the best fantasy films I've seen (not that it has a lot of competition).
After our favorite hairy-toed hero leaves The Shire, FotR basically follows the same pattern: walk and talk, meet some new characters, Frodo slips on the ring and gets scared by the big eye, fight some baddies where the heroes are 3 touchdown underdogs, bemoan the fact that fate has placed this terrible burden on poor little Frodo, and then make another fateful decision that begins the cycle all over again. Throw in the repetitive dialogue and scenes to describe the history and power of the One Ring just in case we forgot from 10 minutes prior...well you get the idea: FotR main problem is it's repetitiveness. It's a shame that Mr. Jackson et al decided to repeat the same themes over and over again instead of using the screen time to develop the characters more fully because I found myself wanting more.
The overall feel of FotR, as others have pointed out, is more like a commercial free marathon of the first season of a superb fantasy television series then a film. Maybe if it was a television series I could forgive Ring's redundancy but since it's not, I really can't. I do not hesitate to recommend this film to fans of fantasy and fairy tales but don't expect to see a '10'. Instead, prepare to be transported to a fantastic world of wizards, elves, and orcs that will take your breath away by gasp of excitement and wonderment and, occasionally, by yawn of boredom.