Purposeful, and overtrimmed.

Rating: Null/10 (23 December 2001)

This movie is fabulous. Far and away the greatest fantasy film ever made... but... you have to be able to think to understand it fully (ie. If when an action adventure has actual acting you get bored, don't go see this) and it is not complete in at least two ways.
1) Its original running length (Dir. cut) was 3.5h, much too long for contemporary cinema. You could sense the missing parts when things did not quite "fit." It must have been hard to slice and dice. I cannot wait for the DVD. That will be the real movie.
2) It is really the first 1/3 of a 9 hour movie. It left us at the edge of a knife.
Good cinema leaves us entertained. Great cinema gets better with every viewing. I have seen this movie 3 times and every time it gets better. I cannot ask for more.
`Let us hunt some orc.'

-Hermit