Loved the books, and, despite its flaws, hugely enjoyed the movie

Rating: Null/10 (27 December 2001)

Me and my friends often make "best book" and "best movie" lists. I am always derided by my more "highbrow" friends when I vote The Lord of the Rings #1 as "best book". I vote it #1 NOT because it is a great piece of writing - in some ways IMO it is quite poorly written - but because of the inspirational effect JRR Tolkien's writing has had on entire generations. Basically his work pretty much single-handedly spawned the swords-and-sorcery fantasy books/games/films industries. It also had a colossal impact on me when I first read it at age 11. (Although I must admit the Silmarillion bored me then and still bored me the last time I tried to read it.)
So when I heard about the LotR movies I re-read the book (for about the 10th time), and it gripped me just as strongly as when I first read it 20+ years ago. I have never looked forward to a movie release so much, and I've been reading "The Hobbit" to my 4-year-old son to try to share the excitement around. (He absolutely loves it by the way although he keeps on asking "When is the bit with the dragon???")
So I saw the movie - and HUGELY enjoyed it, despite its weaknesses as a piece of cinema. Character development? Dialogue? Ending? And as someone else said, Jackson appears to be want to create epic ACTION movies rather than epic fantasy/adventure movies. Still ... despite the flaws it is still a damn sight better than most of the rest of the rubbish I see every year.
BUT: it was a breathtaking (and INCREDIBLY faithful to my mind's eye) creation on screen of Middle Earth, and a valiant effort at compressing the book into something watchable. And I thought it was bloody amazing. If it is possible I am looking forward to the next installments even more than I looked forward to the first one.
So forget about whether it's "faithful to the book" or not (it does its best), forget about whether it's a "good film" or not (it's better than most) - if you've read the books then pay the money, sit back and lose yourself in the splendour of Peter Jackson's NZ Middle Earth.