One of the finest examples of a movie made from a book--ever!

Rating: 10/10 (24 December 2001)

The first installment of the Rings trilogy is such an exciting success that it is hard to contain oneself (coming from an old Tolkien fan). I was also pleased to see similar response from critics that had not read the books. There are so many facets of this film to comment upon, that it is hard to pick just one--but that one should be that this is, quite simply, one of the best jobs of Adaptation ever pulled off. The filmmakers have filled in Tolkien's backstory and all the stuff that happens off-stage in the book The Fellowship of the Ring so well that they have actually improved upon the book by making a seemingly unfilmable work cinematic. This season we have seen the rote scene-by- scene adaptation worked on Harry Potter, which turned a light, charming book into a long, slow 2-1/2 hour stint in the theater. By contrast, The Fellowship of the Ring has been transformed in its adaptation into something truly worthy of the big screen. We truly haven't seen such a wondrous transformation worked on anything since the days of The Wizard of Oz and Gone With the Wind, two other works that have managed over a period of many years to maintain separate, viable existences in both book and movie form.