Mixed reviews

Rating: 5/10 (4 February 2002)

Because Tolkien achieves such a deep level of detail in his writings, it would not be easy to re-create his works on film. For this reason, the movie seems to jump from one chase scene to another, or from one battle scene to another, without much else taking place.
This is a very violent movie, and I'm surprised it only earned a PG-13 rating in the USA's rating system. Though those scenes were all part of the book, after 2 hours, many in the audience had already seen enough battle scenes. Though the epic battle scenes are an integral part of Tolkien's original work, I think the movie misses an outstanding opportunity to expand the movie into the symbolic representations of good vs. evil that Tolkien originally intended. Instead, non-Tolkien fans are left feeling a bit empty, having missed out on the major point of the movie simply because the battle scenes overpower the story.
Personally, I hoped to see more of the internal conflicts between good vs. evil. Almost every character in the movie falls under the ring's spell. Why is it that Frodo, a simple Hobbit, can withstand the ring's power and continue on his quest to destroy the ring? Though the movie's tagline hints at the power contained in the smallest of things, it doesn't do very well at what could potentially be an even larger part of the story than just a few powerful warriors standing up against an entire army of creatures, genetically engineered for battle. Not even Gandalf the wizard dares to handle the ring for fear it may contaminate him and that he might fall victim under its spell. What makes Frodo so powerful that he can resist the temptation to use the ring for evil purposes?
Much has been said about the movie's special effects and their realism. Though impressive at times, many of the effects are transparent. In several scenes, I could not help but think that "this was created on someone's computer." The movie is much better in its computerized effects than most movies have been, but at the same time, it is often easy to see the boundary between reality and computer.
Which brings me to another point. When creating this movie, the producers went to great lengths to try to make Frodo look like a small Hobbit. In some scenes, the Hobbits appear to be 3 feet tall, and yet in others, they appear to be just as tall as everyone else. The main reason for this is because the producers did a very poor job with keeping consistent with the perspective. For example, when a regular-sized character hands a Hobbit a sword, it should look like a long dagger in the hands of the human, but much larger in the hands of a Hobbit. The movie did not do this very well.
This would have been very easy to overlook when producing the movie since it is not something any of us think about on a daily basis. In the real world, objects don't change size depending on the height of the person using them. However, because the film often changes perspective as a trick to make the Hobbits look smaller, the objects, surroundings and props used in the film should have looked bigger compared to the Hobbits to give the movie a greater sense of realism.
In short, you will like this movie if you like Tolkien, or if you like violent and/or frightening movies. If you do not, skip it.