If this wasn't a movie of a Tolkein book it would have been slated

Rating: 6/10 (15 January 2002)

As a movie, The Fellowship of the Ring doesn't stand up well on it's own. No matter where the story is originally derived from a movie needs to be structured, make sense and flow in itself whilst, of course, remaining true to the spirit of the original material. And while we're at it, each movie in a trilogy should also be complete in itself. Instead what we have here is a one dimensional storyline, irrelevant scenes and characters, and an ending that isn't. 3 hours is quite a long time to keep an audience entertained and this movie fails in that respect. I'm a fan of the genre and I first read the books 20 years ago but I was bored by this rendition. All in all I won't be rushing out to see the next one.
Despite the length of the movie, most of the characters were poorly developed. For instance there was much emphasis on the death of Boromir (played by Sean Bean). But I was thinking that I don't care that he is dying, I don't really know who he is. Who is this Arwen chick (Liv Tyler) and what happened to her? Who is this Legolas guy? We may find out more in the next movie but at the end of this one there are a lot of holes.
I spotted a number of references to two of my favourite movies, Highlander (cinematography) and Excalibur (score, battle scenes, wizardry) but this movie doesn't compare well to either of them (except for the special effects we've come to expect from a 100 million dollar movie). Do yourself a favour and see if you can see those movies on the big screen.
I can understand Tolkein nuts would have been hanging out for this movie for decades but I believe that if this wasn't a movie of a classic book then people would have reviewed it much more harshly.
Could do better, 6/10.