Okay, this is an awful movie . . .

Rating: Null/10 (9 August 2002)

It's sad that after going to all the trouble of assembling this elaborate, magical world on the other side of the globe and then gathering an enormous cast there for an entire year to film it, that no one in charge of this movie had the sense to structure a decent script for it all to rest on. I guess if you're a fan of the book, simply seeing it come to life in any form is interesting, but for the rest of us....what a snooze-fest! The four hobbits have practically interchangeable personalities, (except that one of them is quieter than the others and looks like Winona Ryder), the crown prince and that other tall guy on the quest look identical, and the whole thing takes itself SO SERIOUSLY! The story becomes tiresome because it's the same predicament playing out over and over and over, ("We're in trouble!" / "Run!"), and you just have to accept that the plot unfolds the way it does because that's how it happened in the book. For instance, at one point Cate Blanchett encourages Elijah Wood to look into a magic mirror that lets him see the future. (Actually, it looks more like some sort of magic birdbath.) But why does she even care what he sees? The special effects are sort of pretty, but aside from that, this is a looooooooooooong movie for Tolkien fanatics only.