One ring to rule them all, One ring to find them, One ring to bring them all and in the Darkness bind them

Rating: 10/10 (20 December 2001)

The Lord of the Rings. I've seen The Fellowship of the Ring for the first time yesterday (I'm already planning another visit) and I can only say that this trilogy (It has been shot already) is going to be an epic the size of Star Wars.
****************** - Possible spoilers from here - ********************
The story for those who do not know it: Once long ago the rings of power were forged. Three went to the elven Lords, seven to the dwarves and nine to the human kings. They were tricked by Sauron the 'Prince of Darkness'. He forged another ring so he could rule all the other rings. He brought the world destruction and troubled times. Eventually an alliance between Elves, Humans and Dwarves was able to stop Sauron, but the ring wasn't destroyed.
Thousands of years later when Sauron began to rise again a hobbit named Bilbo Baggins came along and acquired (stole) the ring from Gollum (a creature who had the ring in his possession for hundreds of years. In this time the ring had totally corrupted the creature, who now couldn't part from his "Prrrrecious" anymore). The ring heard the call of its master and decided the time was right to be found again.
Now 60 years later Bilbo (at the age of 111. The ring had prolonged the life of the old Hobbit considerably) still living in his beloved shire plans his final farewell. He wants to leave the shire to go spend his final days with the Elves of Rivendell and finish the book about his adventures. He uses the ring to disappear from his birthday to be able to leave quietly. Gandalf persuades him to leave the ring behind.
Frodo then gets the ring in his possession, but Gandalf tells him to keep it a secret and to hide the Ring, feeling some things not right
His suspicions were triggered, when Bilbo became very angry when he asked him to leave the ring behind. Bilbo even called the ring his "precious". The corruption had started to consume Bilbo too.
Gandalf then leaves Frodo to do research on the rings of power. Time goes by and one day Gandalf returns. He now knows for sure the Ring is the one ring and it must be destroyed. If not, Sauron, will be able to destroy the world once again. Even now his Fortress of Barad Dur is rebuild and his armies are growing. His Nazgul (ring wraiths) are already out looking for the ring, being drawn to it whenever its power are used. They already know that someone named Baggins who lives in the Shire has the ring. A race against time starts.
This is just the beginning of the movie(book). The Hobbits gain the aid of the humans (Boromir and Aragorn), an Elf (Legolas) and a Dwarf (Gimli), Gandalf and two other Hobbits from the Shire (Peregrin and Meriadoc). This is the Fellowship of the Ring that has to bring the ring to Mount Doom in Mordor in the center of the realm of Sauron. Only in the fires of Mount Doom can the ring be destroyed. The second half of the movies sees the Fellowship on the road traveling through the mines of Moria, and the forests of LothLorien (both great adaptations from the book) hunted down by Orcs in the process. The two following movies will tell the rest of the journey of the Fellowship of the Ring.
My opinion: I expected a lot of this movie after reading all the other reviews, but what I hadn't expected was to see a book really come to life this way. Everything was very recognizable from the Shire to Rivendell, to the mines of Moria and the land of Loth Lorien.
It's sad to see some things from the book missing in the movie. Like the missing Tom Bombadil. They also changed a number of scenes (probably to keep the movie going and keep it interesting). For instance the intro to the movie is not entirely faithful to the story. Bilbo didn't just find the ring, he tricked it out of the hands of Gollum. Gollum was in fact a Hobbit before he became the creature he is today. But it's probably all done to make sure that the intro isn't a movie in itself. I wasn't really bothered by it, though.
The movie starts very fairy tale like but quickly turns very grim when the race starts to flee from the Nazgul. The first part of the movie is very tense because of these chasing Nazgul. The mines of Moria in the second half of the movie have also been done very well. I really love what they did with the Balrog. A great burning, flaming monster. Throughout the movie we also see the surroundings of Isengard (the home of Saruman the wise) change from a lush and green land to a barren waste land dotted with mines and growing Orc armies.
The film doesn't slow down once during the entire 3 hours of running time. You will actually jump from your seat several times throughout the movie as well. They've put a couple of nice scares in there.
I'll quit now. It's just a very good movie and I'm going to see it again. And I already know I'm going to buy the DVD too when it comes out. I'll give this movie a 10 out of 10. I usually don't give tens to movies, so...........