Good adaptation but boring movie

Rating: 3/10 (7 June 2002)

I have read the books 3 times at around age 15, 25 and 33. I enjoyed them immensely. The movie was a good adaption of the book following the story well, with only a few key segments deleted. The one I most missed was Tom Bombadil and the barrow-wights. The acting was OK and camera work to make the hobbits appear smaller than humans was clever. The FX for the fights,etc was good and like others have said the landscape was well chosen. With the positives out of the way, I can now begin my rant.
Firstly maybe I have more imagination than some but in my minds eye I saw a hobbit differing more from humans than simply having a few hairs on its toes and having all that coffee stunt its growth. With todays FX alot more could have been done to make them seem less human and more middle earthy.
Second of all the movie was boring as snot!! Of the 3 books I think the fellowship was the weakest, but in context of the trilogy it was but the introduction to a bigger story (fortunately you can begin the next book right away or possibly tomorrow cause I gotta work in the morning and I need to get some sleep :). As a movie unto itself it simply doesn't cut it. Three hours and no real climax. If you compare this to Star Wars, Indiana Jones, the Matrix or other multiple part movies you can really see the difference. For those trilogies each movie was a complete story unto itself in addition to being a step in a larger journey. I think the anticipation and the hype made this much more than it really was. Something akin to Blair Witch which was interesting, innovative, nauseating and amusing but not even remotely scary and heavily over-hyped. Finally i am amazed that this film could break the top 250 films let alone the top 5. I suspect the other 2 parts of the trilogy will make for much more interesting fare and in comparison will make this film look like the dull yawner that it is.

P.S. I mentioned that the 1st book was an intro, in large part it was providing character development for the books to come and to be honest a 3 hour movie based primarily around developing characters for later films just can't be all that interesting.