Epic fantasy literature becomes epic fantasy cinema

Rating: 10/10 (22 June 2002)

I have never, in my whole life, been so impressed with a motion picture as I was with this masterful adaption of Tolkien's classic epic. The acting and direction are flawless, and the visualization of Middle-Earth is breathtaking. Every detail, from casting to scoring, was handled as if Tolkien himself was watching over the production.
As far as I can tell, the movie's main critics are a) uptight Tolkien purists, and b) people who didn't like or haven't read Tolkien's work. The uptight critics say that Jackson left too much out, but the truth is that much of Tolkien's narrative is just too slow to be filmed well. I, for one, was glad to see the story tightened up a bit; I got a bit tired of those happy little Hobbits singing silly songs and falling ass-backwards into extraneous troubles every few pages. Also, Tolkien never actually described Lord Sauron in the novels; he left it to the reader's imagination what the Dark Lord looked like. That worked perfectly in print, but the cinema is a different medium altogether. The scene where Sauron the Great takes the battlefield is one of the most heart-stopping in the whole movie.

If your idea of a good fantasy film is wall-to-wall swordplay with lots of scantily clad chicks in chainmail, this isn't the movie for you. If you think the genre of epic fantasy deserves better than Xena and D&D, if you like movies with an intelligent plot and story, if you think dialogue is more important to a fantasy film than the sound of swords clashing endlessly, then Peter Jackson's vision of the greatest heroic fantasy is for you. I give it 10/10.